by Ayin Adams
review by Frieda Groffy
poet manages to publish two volumes of poetry within the period of one year, you just sit back and
think: ‘Wow, what a performance!’
When the author allows you, as Ms. Adams does, to step into her fire, and makes you walk a part of
the road with her, the reader shares her challenges.
It’s a privilege that holds serious consequences though, for you are no longer a neutral bystander, but
a committed part of the project. You become a sharing witness of the joy, the pain, the frustration,
the growth, the rejection and the awards; also, the humiliation and the praise. You see the scars
bleeding and healing, and sometimes you try to be a part of the healing.
As I sit before a white sheet of paper trying to write this review, I feel a bit helpless, as if struck by a
sudden writer's block. It seems to me like all the words I want to use, all the metaphors I want to
invent, I have already used them before to describe that deep, touching kind of ‘soul’ poetry Ayin
Adams is writing.
Chronologically this book should have come first, before The Woods Deep Inside of Me, for it covers the
long bumpy road from her early childhood in Brooklyn up to what became her personal ‘promised
land’ - the abundant beauty of Maui.
But sometimes it’s good not to push, not to look back in anger, but wait until you come to terms with
the past, and then release it with all the emotional drive and passion with which you meet everyday
life; and that is exactly what she did. By having the boldness to do so, this second book can be seen as
Ms. Adams' poetic manifesto.
Every reader who enjoyed the first book, will be deeply touched by the emotional impact of Walking
Through My Fire.
I guarantee you, ‘beware’, for it will feel as if you’ve been hit by a twister!
