For full disclosure, I was about half way through this poetry collection when I started my review. I was not “feeling it” and put the book down. However, since then, I have read more.
The poetry of Composition by Junious Ward is very subject focused and the style is mostly non-traditional with artistic language. Some poems are easy to read and understand as they are set in a traditional format, whereas others (such as the one that has been “blacked out” leaving only a few words floating on the page in a sea of blackness) feel disjointed and messy. The audience who could read this might be broad, but it feels to be aimed at people like Ward and the imagery he gives us in the poems themselves is focused on his subject.
The publisher description of this book (currently available, but I read via an online reader copy), has this as Ward’s debut full-length poetry collection and explores “blackness” and “being biracial” as its themes. I felt most of the poems were more focused on being black, and his father’s role in the life of Ward. The sound of many of the poems is lost by reading them silently. It feels as if most should be read aloud, especially since the publisher is Button Poetry and they mostly publish Slam Poets. Of course, due to the visuals of a few of the writings (not only are there the edited blacked-out poems, but at least one has a two column format) that would get lost.
I think some actual illustrations or some side-sketches could have added to the poetry by giving everything a more visual representation as well as a text/verbal one. Yet, due to some of the actual poems being in non-traditional formatting, you could say they are the illustrations, and in Black Rapture, there is at least one image.
Overall, I cannot say I liked or disliked Ward’s collection. However, I can say it was an experience that I am glad I took, and want to see a final copy, as I believe it is in a larger, paper-picture book-like format and that could help with some of the disjointedness, especially the poem that has stanzas V-shaped and covers several pages in the reader copy. 