Title: The Emmanuel 9
Author: Richard Shine
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 1664187324
Pages: 322
Genre: Poetry
Reviewed by: David Allen

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A regular sight in urban strongholds like NYC are the homeless, the marginalized, the sick and the suffering. Every now and then the wall of silence, built of mutual distrust and apathy, come tumbling down. We see and feel the poignant and desperate struggle of those who must endure the winters, the subway stations and the annoyed stares of passersby in many of Richard Shine’s highly lyrical poems. According to Shine, his book is a “design to help the homeless because it’s tough I was once the same…so I jotted down my lessons…if it don’t help it sure can’t hurt you.”

Meet the Bardic Tradition, resurrected in the twentieth century, for your review.

Just like the buskers and the kids singing hip hop and break dancing for spare change, the poems in The Emmanuel 9 bring the experience of the other side of the socioeconomic divide vividly to life. Richard Price is a poet, a lyricist, and a change maker: his poems energize the heart and broaden vision, telling us what we already (or should already) know. We are all brothers under the skin.

These poems, with titles like ‘Stay Safe Tonight,’ ‘Peace And Love,’ ‘I Will Rise’ and ‘Mis Pandemic’ dip broadly into our culture and time, raising our common experience to the level of song. These poems, spanning 10 years of composition, could also serve as song lyrics – that is how compelling and informed by rhythm they really are. Take this one, ‘Peace and Love’ for starters: ‘We don’t have time for slack/Put away the crack…We are under attack.’ Or ‘Cosign’: ‘I stay high on hope never on dope/All because I put/My heart and soul into these words I wrote.’  The spirit of the streets resides in these punchy blows to the heart and soul, delivered epigrammatically, swift and sure.

Richard Shine seizes the day heroically, always spiritually, with his mordant and authentic take on the state of the world, on war, on poverty and on homelessness. Next time you pass a street person singing his or her heart out these poems will make you think. They will motivate you to listen to the music, the words, and the heartbeat. The essential humanity that connects us all throbs and bleeds in each of Shine’s stanzas. These poems are a testament to a soaring spirit that rises above the grief of the moment to herald warning and advertise love.