Reviews
Rich Furman’s remarkable collection of poetry, Trotting the Race of Time, summons up in riveting detail a Mexico and Central America marked by poverty and violence. The immersive poems document encounters with children, soldiers, candy sellers, revolutionaries, mothers, and fieldworkers-turned-killers in haunting lines, their humanity illuminated by Furman’s compassionate eye. The dreams and sorrows of the late twentieth century here shine and grab the reader as relevant as ever, a source of current trouble and hope.
~ Kathryn Rhett, MFA, Professor of English at Gettysburg College,
poet and nonfiction writer, author of Immortal Village, Souvenir, and Near Breathing
Trotting Race of Time is transformative poetry at its finest—work that goes straight to the heart.
~ Nicholas F. Mazza, PhD, Editor, Journal of Poetry Therapy,
President, National Association for Poetry Therapy,
Dean and Patricia V. Vance Professor Emeritus, Social Work, Florida State University
In Trotting Race of Time Rich Furman demonstrates his mastery of the narrative form—poems that traverse, narrate, and reflect. His deft language and imagery crackle. To perform these acts of witness that are so important, especially during this cultural moment, Furman and his poems “reach down into words as seeds of living.”
~ Jack Martin, MFA, recipient of the Colorado Council on the Arts Poetry Award. Martin’s works have appeared in Agni, Another Chicago Magazine, Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Diagram, The Midwest Quarterly, Ploughshares, River Styx, Quarterly West, and many other magazines.
The poems that comprise Trotting Race of Time illuminate truths seemingly impossible to capture. The author’s daring lyricism gives the reader no choice but to travel by his side, suffer in the blister heat, and wonder.
~ Roger Roffman, PhD, Author of Marijuana Nation (Pegasus, Books)
Are words, images, and ideas irresistible? Rich Furman answers this query with a bold “yes.” No ordinary compilation—poems that lure you, draw you toward a Central America you must meet.
~ Peter Szto, Ph.D. Arts-based researcher, Professor of Social Work, University of Nebraska Omaha
