Author: Alice Walker
Title: Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning
Year Published: 1979
Thoughts and Notes (on publication, literary or historical context, or etc): Concerned with love, civil rights, and the African American female experience, this is Alice Walker's third book of poems. Walker is best known as a fiction writer, and I like her fiction more than her poetry. This book was a pretty quick read for me (despite how long it took me to actually sit down and write about it). It was the opposite experience of reading Oni Buchanan: almost all story, little sound. Although the poems present compelling stories and characters, and even compelling arguments, some of them just seemed jotted down, not particularly artful. On the up side, the poems are easy to understand, with ample explanation of context, some even with footnotes, but my favorites were the ones that held something back and made me wonder. (And I realize that in the Buchanan book, I wanted more story and to wonder less. I am a picky reader.)
I read an essay on Walker, though, that I liked very much, and it made me appreciate her poetry a bit more. In "Who Touches This Touches a Woman: The Naked Self in Alice Walker," Ruth Weston summarizes the collection by noting that "Walker writes about black women with the authority of the universal female experience, an experience made complex and contradictory by the phenomenon of love," and asserts that the collection is "her answer to Adrienne Rich's call to action in her 1972 essay "When We Dead Awaken": a call not only for women writers to express anger at their victimization by men, but also a call for women to stop permitting the abuse, to take responsibility for their lives, to exchange the imposition of pain for what Rich calls the self-actuated 'birth-pains [of] bearing ourselves'" (25). Considering the poems in the context of feminist writing made me value them more as pieces of honest or authentic female speech (which is not to say I think they are autobiographical; I don't), but at the same time, I just wasn't ever enthralled by the poems' language.
Favorites: "January 10, 1973"
"Now That the Book Is Finished"
(Here is a link for this poem; scroll down if you don't want to read the essay)
"Even As I Hold You"
Questions: It's for myself: While I was writing this post, reading essays about Walker, and finding links to the poems, I realized how touching some of her writing really is, and I liked it much more. Was I missing something? Am I a snobby sound poet? I would really like to read some of Walker's essays on writing. I will put that on my long reading list.
The Bottom Line, in 50 Words or Less: These poems are full of feeling and something that I think can only be called truth. I loved the moments when a certain line or image catapulted me into a new part of my imagination; I just wish there had been more of those moments.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
Oni Buchanan's What Animal
Author: Oni Buchanan
Title: What Animal
Year Published: 2003
Notes (on publication, literary or historical context, or etc): This is Buchanan's first book, winner of the University of Georgia Press's Contemporary Poetry Series, a series that was recently shadowed by scandal, or at least the charge of it. I won't get into that here--if you're interested, you can google it. From what I know of Buchanan's work and the work of other authors published in the series, it focuses primarily on poetry that at least edges on the experimental or postmodern. Buchanan's collection fits; the poems are not particularly narrative, although a story or stories of pain or abuse seem to haunt the collection. The poems are extremely attentive to sound, full of phrases like "all the sand grains sorted through a sifter" (6) and--well, really, you can just open to any random page to find lines packed full of alliteration and slant rhymes--my favorite kind of rhymes.
Time Spent Reading: About 2 weeks, in the evenings
Favorites: I love the sounds in the poems in general, but my favorites are the poems in which I can grasp some kind of story. Several of the poems are from the point of view of an animal ("The Only Yak in Batesville, VA") and these I liked for their humor, the way the titles signaled the animal speaker, and their uniqueness. I just like the idea. "The Guinea Pig and the Green Balloon" is another one of my favorites, about a guinea pig who sees a green balloon, falls in love with it, but pops it. Only that paraphrase makes it sound corny, but it's not at all--it's tragic, poignant, and elegant.
Questions: Some of the poems were so unattached to any kind of grounded narrative or speaker that I felt lost. I would like to know how other people interpret or process these poems. Also, this is Oni Buchanan's biography. Could she be any more accomplished? Sheesh.
The Bottom Line, in 50 Words or Less: What stayed with me is the sound; the lines are tight, consonant-rich, and fun to read aloud. This is the kind of book that makes me feel like it's hiding its secrets, though, and that’s a turnoff for me—but I only read it once. Guinea pig poem—-beautiful.
Title: What Animal
Year Published: 2003
Notes (on publication, literary or historical context, or etc): This is Buchanan's first book, winner of the University of Georgia Press's Contemporary Poetry Series, a series that was recently shadowed by scandal, or at least the charge of it. I won't get into that here--if you're interested, you can google it. From what I know of Buchanan's work and the work of other authors published in the series, it focuses primarily on poetry that at least edges on the experimental or postmodern. Buchanan's collection fits; the poems are not particularly narrative, although a story or stories of pain or abuse seem to haunt the collection. The poems are extremely attentive to sound, full of phrases like "all the sand grains sorted through a sifter" (6) and--well, really, you can just open to any random page to find lines packed full of alliteration and slant rhymes--my favorite kind of rhymes.
Time Spent Reading: About 2 weeks, in the evenings
Favorites: I love the sounds in the poems in general, but my favorites are the poems in which I can grasp some kind of story. Several of the poems are from the point of view of an animal ("The Only Yak in Batesville, VA") and these I liked for their humor, the way the titles signaled the animal speaker, and their uniqueness. I just like the idea. "The Guinea Pig and the Green Balloon" is another one of my favorites, about a guinea pig who sees a green balloon, falls in love with it, but pops it. Only that paraphrase makes it sound corny, but it's not at all--it's tragic, poignant, and elegant.
Questions: Some of the poems were so unattached to any kind of grounded narrative or speaker that I felt lost. I would like to know how other people interpret or process these poems. Also, this is Oni Buchanan's biography. Could she be any more accomplished? Sheesh.
The Bottom Line, in 50 Words or Less: What stayed with me is the sound; the lines are tight, consonant-rich, and fun to read aloud. This is the kind of book that makes me feel like it's hiding its secrets, though, and that’s a turnoff for me—but I only read it once. Guinea pig poem—-beautiful.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
The Student and the Teacher
As I have mulled over this new project the last couple of weeks, I have been asking myself what a blog about the poems I am reading would be about. In other words, what would I say about these books and poems? This is really a question about purpose. Answering it gave me some insight into one reason that I don't really do a whole lot of poetry reading on my own, and the answer is school.
I don't mean school in the way people usually talk about poetry and school, as in "I wanted to read poems my own way but school taught me that there's only one right answer and thus snuffed my creative spirit." Sure, I probably took a few classes like that, and I certainly have a fear of discussing poems in the context of Grand Literary Theory, but overall most schooling I have taken part in, both as a teacher and a student, has increased my sense of creativity and trust in my own interpretations. What I mean by school is that for 26 out of the 33 years of my life, I have been in school. For some of those years I was the teacher, but for most of them I was the student. I was being told what to read and when, and being directed in my responses to the books and poems as well.
Right now, and for the past year and a half, I have not been in school at all. No one has been telling me to read anything, and I haven't been reading it. Also, I have been focusing most of my energy on a little project called Raising a Human Being. Until recently, this project left little time for repose of any kind, much less reading poetry (which I don't find relaxing anyway--stimulating, yes, at best even invigorating--but not relaxing). Lately, though, I have had more time and space in my life--which brings us to this blog.
To return to the question that began this post, then, what will I say about the books and poems I write about here? Would I write reviews? Would I write essays? Neither of these ideas appealed to me. My primary purpose is to read these poems, not to create polished or publishable (beyond the blog, that is) writing about them. At the same time, I want to write something about each book I read, not only to keep myself focused and motivated but also to help me remember what it is I have read.
So, ever the teacher, I created a little form for myself, a set of questions and comments I plan to complete about every book I read. My hope is that this form will keep me interested in each book and to help me to retain what I have read. I will likely tweak these questions as I go along, but here is what I have so far.
Author:
Title:
Year Published:
Notes (on publication, literary or historical context, or etc):
Time Spent Reading:
Favorites:
Questions:
The Bottom Line, in 50 Words or Less:
What do you think? Suggestions are welcome. And I made myself read the first book before I was even allowed to create this blog, so stay tuned for the first book soon!
I don't mean school in the way people usually talk about poetry and school, as in "I wanted to read poems my own way but school taught me that there's only one right answer and thus snuffed my creative spirit." Sure, I probably took a few classes like that, and I certainly have a fear of discussing poems in the context of Grand Literary Theory, but overall most schooling I have taken part in, both as a teacher and a student, has increased my sense of creativity and trust in my own interpretations. What I mean by school is that for 26 out of the 33 years of my life, I have been in school. For some of those years I was the teacher, but for most of them I was the student. I was being told what to read and when, and being directed in my responses to the books and poems as well.
Right now, and for the past year and a half, I have not been in school at all. No one has been telling me to read anything, and I haven't been reading it. Also, I have been focusing most of my energy on a little project called Raising a Human Being. Until recently, this project left little time for repose of any kind, much less reading poetry (which I don't find relaxing anyway--stimulating, yes, at best even invigorating--but not relaxing). Lately, though, I have had more time and space in my life--which brings us to this blog.
To return to the question that began this post, then, what will I say about the books and poems I write about here? Would I write reviews? Would I write essays? Neither of these ideas appealed to me. My primary purpose is to read these poems, not to create polished or publishable (beyond the blog, that is) writing about them. At the same time, I want to write something about each book I read, not only to keep myself focused and motivated but also to help me remember what it is I have read.
So, ever the teacher, I created a little form for myself, a set of questions and comments I plan to complete about every book I read. My hope is that this form will keep me interested in each book and to help me to retain what I have read. I will likely tweak these questions as I go along, but here is what I have so far.
Author:
Title:
Year Published:
Notes (on publication, literary or historical context, or etc):
Time Spent Reading:
Favorites:
Questions:
The Bottom Line, in 50 Words or Less:
What do you think? Suggestions are welcome. And I made myself read the first book before I was even allowed to create this blog, so stay tuned for the first book soon!
It's Me Against These Poems
Poets read poetry. It's a fact. Every teacher I have had, every published poet I have spoken to, every poetry-related person I have gotten the chance to meet has said the same thing: good poets read, and they read a lot.
I am, among other things, a poet; that is to say, I write poems. I want to write more poems, and I want to teach poetry. Lately, a little fact has been buzzing around my consciousness, a tiny fly, but impossible to ignore: I don't read a whole lot of poetry. In fact, I have shelves and shelves of poetry collections that I haven't read. Some of these books have been around for years, and most of them haven't been read. Sure, I have flipped through them, read a few poems here and there, and read a few of them in full. But for the post part: unread.
Is this because poetry is hard to read? It is because I don't like reading poetry? It is because I am lazy? Is it because I don't have enough time to read these books? This blog is an exploration in finding out.
I am, among other things, a poet; that is to say, I write poems. I want to write more poems, and I want to teach poetry. Lately, a little fact has been buzzing around my consciousness, a tiny fly, but impossible to ignore: I don't read a whole lot of poetry. In fact, I have shelves and shelves of poetry collections that I haven't read. Some of these books have been around for years, and most of them haven't been read. Sure, I have flipped through them, read a few poems here and there, and read a few of them in full. But for the post part: unread.
Is this because poetry is hard to read? It is because I don't like reading poetry? It is because I am lazy? Is it because I don't have enough time to read these books? This blog is an exploration in finding out.
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