SOURCE: "Playing the Hand She's Dealt," in The New York Times, July 2, 1996, pp. B1, B4.

[In the review below, Smith discusses the controversy over some of the themes and perspectives in Sapphire's novel and poetry.]

This is the realm of "the voiceless," Lenox Avenue between 133d and 134th Streets in Harlem, where Precious, the teenage heroine of Push, a new novel by the poet Sapphire, lives.

"She lives there," Sapphire, also known as Ramona Lofton, said recently, pointing at a dowdy building over a check cashing store. Sapphire spoke as if Precious really existed. In the book, Precious, whose given name is Claireece, has a baby, "Little Mongo," who was conceived with her own father. The baby has "Down sinder" (Down's syndrome). Now Precious is pregnant again, by "my fahver," as she puts it, and attending an "insect survivor group."

Alfred A. Knopf paid Sapphire $500,000 for Push as...