Bronx Masquerade

  This is almost like a play for 18 voic­es, as Grimes … moves her nar­ra­tion among a group of high school stu­dents in the Bronx. The Eng­lish teacher, Mr. Ward, accepts a set of poems from Wes­ley, his response to a month of read­ing poet­ry from the Harlem Renais­sance. Soon there’s an open-mike poet­ry read­ing, spon­sored by Mr. Ward, every month, and then lat­er, every week. The chap­ters in the stu­dents’ voic­es alter­nate with the poem read by that stu­dent, defi­ant, shy, ter­ri­fied. All of them, black, Lati­no, white, male, and female, talk about the unease and alien­ation endem­ic to their ages, and they do it in fresh and appeal­ing voic­es … Beyond those cap­sules are rich and com­plex teens, and their ten­ta­tive reach­ing out to each oth­er increas­es as though the poems they also find more of them­selves. (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)