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Reviewed by Alice DiNizo for Readers' Favorite
Annie Koshi was born in India, received her education there and then immigrated to the United States where she earned two more Master's Degrees and a Doctorate from Columbia University but is now retired after serving as an English Professor and the Director of the Women's Studies Program at the City University of New York. Born as a dark-skinned woman in a country where widowed women were once burned on their dead husbands' funeral pyre, Annie endured much throughout her life. She writes the fifty-seven poems in "Reflections: A Woman's Journey through Life Experiences" in order to make the reader know the hurdles she had faced and overcome, perhaps making the readers' lives a little easier. The fourteen sections of poems on different issues touch on skin color and ethnicity, motherhood, overcoming hurdles, lessons to be learned and tributes to her husband and a friend lost on 9/11. But "Reflections" is not a collection of sad poems. Annie Koshi also has a great sense of humor as on page 123 in the poem 'To Archangel Gabriel', she writes of wanting the Greek Goddess Athena to give her some ambrosia "so my senior skin will be stripped off from all signs of aging"!
"Reflections: A Woman's Journey through Life Experiences" will appeal to all readers. Its poems are easy to read and some include repetitive stanzas as on page 65, Annie Koshi uses "My future is not bleak 'cause I'm not weak" several times. In 'My Life of Hope' on page 59 Annie Koshi will reach readers everywhere with her "Hope is the warrior who fights for me, no matter I fail. His long, strong rope always outstretched for me to clutch, to hold on." Women everywhere will keep a bedside copy of "Reflections" handy and give it as a birthday present to beleaguered friends.
