Piedad Guzman

The Journey of Joy Piedad Guzman

?The Journey of Joy is distinguished by its focus on human rights and social justice movements. Guzman aims to inspire as well as provide practical information. The combination of quotes, photographs, resources, and the international perspective on human struggle makes this a unique offering that may appeal to readers for reasons beyond the poetry?s level of sophistication.? ?BlueInk Review.

The Journey of Joy, divided in four chapters entitled ?New York,? ?Love,? ?Reality? and ?Life,? touches on a diversity of current concerns. These are the boroughs where, traveling fast, the poet discovers the self every day. Flashing through sensory experience, she has supercharged the Whitmanesque style in the 21st century. At breathing spots, Gandhi, Prophet Mohamed, Martin Luther King, Jr. and like personages are quoted. Cellphone text messages, New Yorker code and Guzman?s American, Ecuadorian and Bolivian background are mashed into a funk rave that sweeps her audience along into a state of belief that the citizens of humanity do make a difference for peace in the music of a thousand languages that soothe the New York air.