THE BOOKS
Le Hinton is the author of six collections of poetry.
Sing Silence (Iris G. Press, 2018)
The Language of Moisture and Light (Iris G. Press, 2014)
The God of Our Dreams (Iris G. Press, 2010)
Black on Most Days (Iris G. Press, 2008)
Status Post Hope (Iris G. Press, 2006)
Waiting for Brion (Iris G. Press, 2004)
Review by Grace Cavalieri
Iris G. Press. 80 pages.
Cotton. How can book of nearly 90 pages address one word: Cotton. Hinton does, because each poem shows a stain on American history. Cotton becomes the antecedent for anger, the main character in a play; cotton speaks for itself; it’s reviled, described, and chillingly said. There are interviews with cotton, uses, remembrances — but beneath it all are the backs broken under scorching suns for an economy built on that breakage. Hinton lyricizes the mantle of what’s been endured — this element from nature that transformed a world. The true strengths in the writing are fact and fury. And, sadly, what still separates us in this world is cotton — how each of us, with unlikely connections, see the world differently through experience. These poems are words that work for Hinton. Passion and progress make up the only coherence we can hope for. The fabric of the past is a letter to the future, signed by Le Hinton.
Uses of Cotton (Eraser)
When my brother tells the story,
he forgets to mention the sock, black
and worn. Mom darned it in three places;
Dad used it as an eraser.
I never leave out the part
about his teaching
us numbers. When to add.
How to subtract.
He set up a blackboard in the back-
yard and wrote problems on it. Even invited
the neighborhood kids. We earned a piece
of candy for each one we got right.
Four and five-year-old black boys
standing at the blackboard doing math
and hoping never to need the eraser,
hoping to taste a Tootsie Roll.
Back then I didn’t know the whole story:
How Mom and Dad sat at the Formica table
in our yellow kitchen as he counted his jobs
and the money from each one while Mom mended
the holes in our socks. We slept upstairs
and never worried or counted sheep
knowing they’d always fix the holes,
at least until we learned to do the math ourselves.
The Language of Moisture and Light
ISBN: 0-9785858-7-9
Joseph Ross, poet and educator, reviews The Language of Moisture and Light on his blog, http://josephross.net/?p=2071.
I thank you, Mr. Ross, from the bottom and top of my heart.
The God of Our Dreams
ISBN: 0-9785858-5-2
Where does one find some harmonies within the chaos of our experience?
Does the “God of Our Dreams” exist? Fearful of a world so fragile with loss it is difficult to believe one can ever trust happiness again, the personae of these poems discovers that it is, indeed, still possible to re-discover love – unexpected, unexplainable – untranslatable — but calling us, nonetheless, into the mystery of light.
Michael Glaser former poet laureate of Maryland
Black on Most Days
ISBN: 09785858-3-6
Black on Most Days is Lancaster resident Le Hinton's fourth collection of poetry, billed as "a jagged exploration of the themes of depression, religion and isolation." Illustrative photos of a gun and a blank tombstone emphasize the dark mood.
Lancaster Sunday News
Status Post Hope
ISBN: 0-9785858-0-1
Le Hinton takes the architecture of poetry and language out on the town. And a good time is had by all. Hinton is quite an entertainer. With a little wit and humour, and a whirl of a waltz and watusi and e.e. cummings, Le trips off into a style that suggests a kind of post-modern surrealism, yet one that is actually neither/nor.
Marty Esworthy author of twenty-six javanese proverbs
Waiting for Brion
ISBN: 1-979294-45-1
Reading Le Hinton's Waiting for Brion is like taking a walk with him. We talk of bitterness but walk on the bright side of the street. He's smart, not showy, and seems to know a lot more than his visceral, precise, spare words & private glimpses allow me to see. And we laugh, quietly, as much at ourselves as at the follies around us; part company a bit less lonely in spit of knowing, " there aren't many epiphanies."
Gene Hosey former poet laureate of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania