- ASIN: B09Z8TTQD1
- Publication date: 22 May 2022
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 84 pages
- Genre: Poetry and Social Commentary Genres
The BookViral Review:
In The Sound of the Broken Wand, award-winning singer and songwriter Tiki Black offers a rare synthesis of poetry, memoir, and music, crafting a deeply introspective and emotionally resonant collection. This book, a companion to her album of the same name, unfolds as a lyrical exploration of identity, emancipation, and the fragile process of healing. Each poem and lyric reveals another layer of a journey defined not by linear events, but by transformation—a quiet, powerful defiance of the spells cast by trauma, expectation, and survival itself.
The book is organized thematically, with sections like “The Blood,” “The Cage,” and “The Mirror,” each serving as metaphorical portals into internal and societal struggles. These themes are not whimsical as the fairy tale imagery might first suggest. Instead, they are tools of subversion, deconstructing the very myths that confine the self. Black’s poetry confronts pain with candour and complexity, as seen in “The Wound,” where healing is not portrayed as a smooth arc, but as a stubborn, intimate confrontation with inherited grief and internalized oppression.
What gives the book its undeniable power is the author’s vulnerability. Black does not flinch from exposing the rawest parts of herself, nor does she wrap her pain in platitudes. In her prose-poetic essay “Reflections,” she recounts a moment of racial and aesthetic judgment that triggered not shame, but insight. Her response—first a smile, then private tears—illustrates the dual burden of self-awareness and cultural expectation. It’s this interplay between poetic image and real-world implication that elevates the work beyond the personal into the philosophical.
The lyricism of Black’s writing, rooted in her musical background, saturates each page. The included song lyrics, such as “The Debt,” “Nobody Knows,” and “Colour Me Blue,” not only echo the themes of the poems but amplify them. These songs, rich in metaphor and repetition, read as both standalone pieces and integral parts of a cohesive emotional landscape. Even when her words repeat, they do not feel redundant; instead, they build rhythmically, as if performed from the page.
Yet this richness can also present a challenge. The book is dense with symbolism and metaphor, and its structure defies narrative conventions. Readers looking for a clear storyline or direct conclusions may find themselves disoriented. But to read The Sound of the Broken Wand is not to follow a plot—it is to dwell in a voice that is rediscovering its power, piece by lyrical piece.
Black’s reflections on beauty, race, freedom, and love consistently return to one core message: liberation is not given—it is claimed. The “broken wand” of the title becomes a symbol of this break from illusion and control, a rejection of the spell of mere survival in favour of true living. The final poems in the collection, including “The Magic of Life,” affirm that power is not granted by others but drawn from within, and that the only meaningful transformation is one that is self-directed.
Ultimately, The Sound of the Broken Wand is a book for readers who are unafraid of ambiguity, who are willing to sit with uncomfortable truths, and who recognize the beauty in emotional excavation. It reads like a conversation between inner voices—the wounded, the survivor, the dreamer—and leaves the reader not with closure, but with possibility.
It is a haunting, healing, and exquisitely crafted work of art and much deserving of our Golden Quill.
