"The speakers represent voices that are rare in books for youth, and their furious yearning for justice, love, safety, sex, and a good education is unforgettable."
     —Booklist

 "These poems are muscular and vivid, fierce with the sound and force of language."
     —School Library Journal

"Thoroughly original and readable, Tough Boy Sonatas is a gem. To Curtis L. Crisler the range of poetry looms as wide as any golf course Tiger Woods surveys. Whether writing about homegrown burgers, hypnotics and addiction, so-called Ebonics, the Penitentiary, parenthood, or Gary, Indiana, Crisler hits one hole-in-one after another. Like the chocolate city of Gary's "cracked sidewalks embroidered with weeds," this barrier-breaking storyteller-poet, well-grounded in the good feeling of family and community, sees through stone. He knows his 20th century predecessors, too: Carl Sandburg and Aretha Franklin. How can younger and older readers resist the pleasure of such a life-crazed book?"
     —Al Young, California Poet Laureate

Show All Reviews

 "The speakers represent voices that are rare in books for youth, and their furious yearning for justice, love, safety, sex, and a good education is unforgettable."
     —Booklist

 "These poems are muscular and vivid, fierce with the sound and force of language."
     —School Library Journal

"Thoroughly original and readable, Tough Boy Sonatas is a gem. To Curtis L. Crisler the range of poetry looms as wide as any golf course Tiger Woods surveys. Whether writing about homegrown burgers, hypnotics and addiction, so-called Ebonics, the Penitentiary, parenthood, or Gary, Indiana, Crisler hits one hole-in-one after another. Like the chocolate city of Gary's "cracked sidewalks embroidered with weeds," this barrier-breaking storyteller-poet, well-grounded in the good feeling of family and community, sees through stone. He knows his 20th century predecessors, too: Carl Sandburg and Aretha Franklin. How can younger and older readers resist the pleasure of such a life-crazed book?"
     —Al Young, California Poet Laureate

"Floyd Cooper's illustrations--whether smoggy air in downtown Gary or soft-yet-tough faces--add a great deal. The poems' speakers are from Gary's tough Delaney housing project, in the 1970s. Some memories--competitively spinning tops, great home-made hamburgers--are easier for readers, and for poets remembering. The continuously grinding burdens of addiction, poverty and violence make for rougher memories, like the tangle of remembering comics and fun with Grandma, as well as sitting on her lap as she shoots up. These aren't the only stories Gary has to tell, but words can be a bridge from even the toughest places."
     —Chicago Tribune

"Many of the 39 poems in Tough Boy Sonatas by Curtis Crisler, illus. by Floyd Cooper, have previously appeared, and mature readers will likely welcome this anthology that collects them all. ...Floyd Cooper's sepia-toned pastels with a judicious use of blue or orange create psychological portraits of the characters here. Even inanimate objects (a cityscape, a house) pulse with life."
     —Publishers Weekly

"There's an adult edge and retrospection to these poems that makes them more suitable to experienced young readers of poetry, but those willing to rise to the challenge will find a compelling poetic picture. While Crisler's style varies, many of his poems favor pulsing internal rhymes and polysyllabic echoes, repetitions and near-repetitions, playing with homophonic syllables; the result are sonorous poems often begging for oral performance, which may also make them more accessible to teens intimidated by verse on the page. Poems treating darker subjects such as a heroin-using grandmother ("Grandma") or methods of survival in the projects ("Back Tracks") are leavened by warmer paeans to childhood joys such as Mom's hamburgers ("Burgers, Homegrown") and the passion for candy ("Addiction"). Cooper's moody illustrations blend grainy pastel textures with pale washes, with browns and blacks sometimes the sole pigments and other colors introduced only as accents; the portraiture is eloquent and at times haunting, the landscapes poignant."
     —Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"[I]llustrated by Floyd Cooper with brown and white portraits full of in-your-face feeling. ...This loosely connected collection portrays different facets of life for a young black boy growing toward manhood in 1970s Gary, Ind. The 39 poems are evocative, shocking in their execution and ambition, and, best of all, never afraid of being poetry and evincing some difficulty of structure and meaning."
     —Chicago Sun-Times

"Powerful. ...The accomplished poems push buttons with their potent imagery and the muted, dreamlike paintings pack a punch of their own."
     —School Library Journal/Curriculum Connections

"Beautifully produced. ...Crisler's poetry paints a vivid picture of violence, poverty, sex, family, and community in verse that demands to be performed, to be experienced beyond the printed page. ...The poetry is well illustrated by Cooper. ...Vocabulary, tone, and cultural references keep the collection from being traditional teen-angst poetry, but the language, format, and themes will appeal to teens willing to wrestle with poetry and to revel in language."
     —Voice of Youth Advocates>

"Forceful. ...[E]vocative. ...Dramatic experieces...resonate in their vividness. ...Cooper's smokey illustrations extend the poetry's dark themes. ...While some language and subjects may be controversial, this portrayal of urban adolescen, told with such insight, skill, and honesty, is a powerful and importatnt look at the very real challenges of many teens."
     —Children's Literature

"Sophisticated yet street-tough, steely yet emotionally transparent, Tough Boy Sonatas is exactly what we need: another strong narrative that will appeal to young men. A dazzling debut. A welcome and powerful new voice."
     —Nikki Grimes

"These white-hot poems scream and sing, in the poet's words, "I Am ALIVE," at every juncture. What an ear, what an eye, and what heart has Curtis Crisler in this indelible first book."
     —Elizabeth Alexander, Yale University, author of American Sublime

"It is time for black boys being young black men to have the healing space, the safe space where they can hang up the fighting stance and learn the contours of feeling. It is time to offer life in places that threaten to erase life. These poems offer the chance to black boys and help them enter the paradise of their own spirits. The shifting tension between formal language and the black urban patois is a scheme for measures of a song that looks back and shows young boys burdened with toughness how to rephrase home. Hallelujah!"
     —Afaa Michael Weaver

"A simple elegance radiates from this new compilation of poetry. Crisler's masterful poems about childhood in Gary, Indiana, are juxtaposed with Cooper's haunting illustrations. The effect created is evocative and unforgettable. Crisler's poetry is straightforward and at times blunt. He has ingenious insight and, through personal anecdotes, brings to light the plight of young Black men being raised in the inner city."
     —Multicultural Review