SOURCE: "Lost City" in The Village Voice, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2, January 12, 1993, pp. 80-1.

In the following review, Myles states that while Magic City "starts off a little sticky," its "information is unforgettable."

Yusef Komunyakaa, an African American poet whose last book, Dien Cai Dau, drove a shaft of light into the inarticulate spectacle of the Vietnam War, has now taken on a story easy to mistell: childhood. Magic City is the name of this foray. It starts off a little sticky, in my opinion. I don't think Komunyakaa feels confident with the first person—certainly not a re-assembled first person, like that of the speaker in the first poem: "Venus's-flytraps":

       The tall flowers in my dreams are
       Big as the First State Bank,
       & they eat all the people
       Except the ones I love.
       They have women's names,
       With mouths like where
       Babies come from. I am five.

Komunyakaa...