Title: As You Sow: A Poetry Anthology
Author: Garret Thomas Godwin
Publisher: PageTurner Press and Media
ISBN: 979-8-88622-434-4
Pages: 64
Genre: Poetry
Reviewed by: Ella Vincent
Pacific Book Review
As You Sow is a poetry collection about the Wild West, love, and many other fascinating topics. Poet Garret Thomas Godwin has written a series of poems that will engage readers.
As You Sow has a few poems about the genocide of Native Americans at the Battle of Wounded Knee. In “Wounded Knee,” he recounts the bloody battle that killed the legendary Lakota leader Sitting Bull: “ In the process, you killed Sitting Bull / A noble warrior of his race / And sent Big Foot to his grave / To me, it was nothing but a disgrace.” Godwin also writes about the legend that the Lenape tribe sold Manhattan to the Dutch for $24: “For twenty-four dollars’ worth of wampum / They sold their tribal lands / The rest they say is history / Not knowing they had been shammed.”
In addition to writing about the theft of Native American land, Godwin writes eloquently about nature in Western lands in poems like “From Atop Mount Evans, Colorado”: “A mountain spirit here gently whispers names / If you hear him, do not be afraid / He lets you walk on the wind over snowy glaciers / To leave your old self behind.” He also writes emotionally about personal demons in poems like “Damaged Goods” in which the poem’s narrator: “If only mental illness didn’t run in my family / I might have ruled the world / Instead I sit here on this hospital bed / And shiver, because my new world is so cold.”
While many of the poems are very serious, there are some irreverent poems in As You Sow as well. Poems like “Bill and Me” has a narrator recounting almost joining Bill Gates at Microsoft. He writes about helping Gates code when the Microsoft was still a fledgling company: “We met in the student lounge / And he proceeded to explain his problem / It only took me three seconds to figure out / That his problem was no conundrum.”
Another irreverent poem was “A Tribute to Leona Helmsley, or the Queen of Mean”, a sardonic goodbye to the cruel businesswoman who left her fortune to her dog when she died: “Her claim to fame was the statement: only little people pay taxes / There must be some good in this world, / Because by not paying them, she went to jail. / To the delight of her employees who partied and twirled.”
Godwin’s writing is so eloquent and emotional, As You Sow will resonate deeply with readers. As You Sow has heartfelt poems about karma, justice, and even simple emotions like love and regret that will make the book an unforgettable book for readers.
