Out of No Way: Madam CJ Walker & A'Lelia Walker A Poetic Drama by Roje Augustin

Out of No Way: Madam CJ Walker & A'Lelia Walker A Poetic Drama by Roje Augustin

156 Pages

Published May 2020 by Bowker

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Poetic Book Tours - Where Readers Come to Poetry

Publisher's Summary: 

Author, producer, and emerging poet Rojé Augustin has written a groundbreaking debut collection of dramatic poems about hair care entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker and her daughter, A'Lelia. Rojé's singular and accomplished work is presented through the intimate lens of the mother-daughter relationship via different poetic forms — from lyric to haiku, blackout to narrative. (One poem takes its inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven.) Written in tribute to Walker, Out of No Way deftly and beautifully explores themes of race, motherhood, sacrifice, beauty, and the meaning of success in Jim Crow America.

My Thoughts: 

You know me I'm always up for trying something different in a book. Well, maybe not always...you are going to have to convince me that it's worth taking a risk, especially in the past year when my reading has been on the skids. But, say you approach me with a book about a woman that I've long been interested in learning more about and then also say that you approach me about a book of poetry, something I've been trying to read more of recently and then say that you have a book that combines both of those things. Well then, you've got my attention. 

Ms. Augustin doesn't just hop right into the poetry. She kindly gives readers an introduction to the characters who will be populating her work and prefaces the book with an explanation of why she wanted to write about Sarah Breedlove, why she chose to write her poetry from the points of view of both Sarah and her daughter Lelia, and how she chose what she would write her poems about. If you've been here long, you know that I almost always skip over these kinds of introductions but I'm glad I didn't do that here. To be honest, it wasn't that much reading but it was certainly well worth the time it took to give me a good background going into the book. 

Sarah Breedlove was the first child born into freedom in her family, orphaned at age seven, married at fourteen, a mother at seventeen, a widow at twenty. Lelia was her only child. Breedlove would marry twice more, the third time to Charles Joseph Walker who convinced her to call herself Madam C.J. Walker when her company began. Ms. Walker died at the young age of fifty-one have risen from a working child who earned seventy cents for doing the hard work of a household to being the first self-made female millionaire in the country. 

Each chapter addresses an issue relevant to this mother and daughter - the first letters of those issues, in fact, spell out M-O-T-H-E-R and D-A-U-G-H-T-E-R. Poem styles include lyric, narrative, haiku, blackout, elegy, nursery rhyme, and villanelle. It's particularly interesting to see how the form of poem either mirrors the topic (Envy is written in blackout form) or to act as a counterpoint (Hate written in nursery rhyme). 

All of the poems serve to move the story of these two women forward as Augustin explores the relationship between the two, often alternating poems from one woman's point of view to the other. As with any book of poetry, some of these resonated more with me than others. Rare for me in a book of poetry, I even highlighted some passages. 

Some of my poems were The Voice In Her Head, in no small part because of the way Augustin then took that work and used blackout to make it several other works. She also used black out to take a dozen Madam C.J. Walker product ads and create poetry out of them that addresses envy - I found them very clever and as a whole, very effective. In the chapter titled Resilience is a work titled "Resilience: Making a Way Out of No Way" Speech by Madam C.J. Walker Given at the Anti-Lynching Conference of June 1918" that is gut wrenching and inspiring. In the chapter titled Hate is the piece titled The Prison of Racism that Hate Built, which is a poem that builds on itself and becomes more and more impactful and which is one of my favorite works in the book. I'll share one of the last stanzas.

There was the money

For the NAACP

To challenge America

That elected the president

Who headed the government

That built a system

That rewarded the white men

Who created Jim Crow, 

That angered the woman 

Who helped the people 

Lynched in the prison of racism

that hate built. 

This is a book the keeps me challenging myself to read out of my comfort zone in both genre and subject, to read diversely and, sometimes, uncomfortably. Well done, Ms. Augustin. Well done. 

Any Dumb Animal by A. E. Hines

Any Dumb Animal by A. E. Hines

Published November 2021 by Main Street Rag

Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher and Poetic Book Tours

Publisher's Summary:

Any Dumb Animal (Main Street Rag, 2021), the debut poetry collection by AE Hines, presents a memoir-in-verse as told by a gay man raised in the rural South who comes of age during the AIDS crisis. Flashing back and forth in time, a cast of recurring characters and circumstances are woven into a rich tale of survival and redemption, exploring one man's life as a queer son, father, and husband, over a span of more than thirty years.

My Thoughts: 

A few weeks ago, I posted that a group of anonymous donors would match, dollar for dollar, each pre-sale of this collection of poetry and donate it to The Trevor Project. Having read the publisher's summary for this collection, I thought I knew the reason why. I only knew half of it. 

Perhaps A. E. Hines never attempted suicide. Perhaps he never contemplated it. I don't know that. What I can tell you, after reading this collection that is a memoir of Hines' life, is that it would have been perfectly understandable had he contemplated it. There has been so much pain in his life, so much unrelenting pain and it is so very palpable in this collection. 

The collection opens with a poem, "Phone Call," about a drunken call to tell his father that he hates him and that his only son is gay "like it's some kind of punishment." His father responds "I blame myself...Wasn't hard enough on you. I failed." Trust me when I tell you that is simply not true. In "How We Learn," we learn that Hines' father, understanding his fear of water, "became fond of tossing me into the deep end of pools..." and told Hines that "any dumb animal can learn." 

"Childhood was all about drowning: 

first in the ocean, a few year later

in the river named Fear.

I was too young to understand 

this would be a metaphor for my life."

Early on Hines' learns that his entire family can "only love a man down on his knees." They seem determined to keep him there and Hines' seems to have, for many years, been determined to do that as well. He made poor choices in men, including a spouse who was every bit as abusive as the father who had taught Hines that he deserved nothing better. 

Hines takes readers through the end of his marriage and his divorce; through being a parent, through committing his mother to an asylum; to surviving the AIDS epidemic and then CoVid; and finally, at last, learning to swim in all of the ways that counts. 

As you know, I don't read a lot of poetry, although I'm not sure why not. It is, perhaps, the easiest way to see inside of a person, to feel their pain and their joy. What I've read in the past few years has felt incredibly honest. This collection is the most raw, most heartbreaking, most honest collection I think I've ever read. But it's a tough read and it perhaps explains why I don't pick up more poetry. When it is this emotionally draining, it takes time to recover. 

Thanks to Serena, and Poetic Book Tours for including me on the tour for this collection. For other opinions, check out the full tour here. 

About the Author: 

AE Hines (he/him) grew up in rural North Carolina and currently resides in Portland, Oregon. His poetry has been widely published in anthologies and literary journals including I-70 Review, Sycamore Review, Tar River Poetry, Potomac Review, Atlanta Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal and Crab Creek Review. He is winner of the Red Wheelbarrow Prize and has been a finalist for the Montreal International Poetry Prize. He is currently pursuing his MFA in Writing at Pacific University. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

Why I Never Finished My Dissertation by Laura Foley

Why I Never Finished My Dissertation by Laura Foley
Published August 2019 by Headmistress Press
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through TLC Book Tours, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
None.

My Thoughts: Six years ago I read and thoroughly enjoyed Laura Foley's Joy Street. It was a no brainer for me to pick up this volume when it was recommended to me. Like Joy Street, Why I Never Finished My Dissertation is a deeply personal collection. The first collection was focused on one aspect of her life but here Foley explores all aspects of her life, her first marriage at 19 to a man looking for his green card as she was looking to escape her privileged life, her second marriage to a much older man, mothering a mentally disabled daughter, becoming a grandmother, and finally finding real love in her forties. It is a life's journey.

Many of the poems are Foley's quiet reflections in moments alone. In others, the world comes crashing in, such as in Tehran Snow. While Foley's poetry is plain spoken and very approachable, she can also pack an emotional punch that hits you even when you see it coming, as in Visiting My Sister In The Mental Ward. Foley is capable of conveying so much in so few words, as she does in Motherhood:

Almost four, on a dare
from his bother,
he leaps from the raised silo floor
to the ground, ten feet down.
Due to birth my daughter soon -
my mouth's a wide-open O
as I watch his flight -
my hands an umbrella
around my big belly,
till he lands - on his feet
on soft summer grass,
and smiles up at me -
as I breathe, bracing myself
for whatever comes next.

If you're a mother, you can certainly relate to this poem, as you will be able to when you read Foley's poems about her daughter. They won't be the only poems that speak to you.

Thanks to the ladies at TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. For other opinions, check out the full tour here.

About Laura Foley: Laura Foley is the author of six poetry collections, including Joy Street, Syringa and Night Ringing. Her poem “Gratitude List” won the Common Good Books poetry contest and was read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac. Her poem “Nine Ways of Looking at Light” won the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest, judged by Marge Piercy. For more information on Laura’s work, please visit her website.

The Raven And Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

The Raven and Other Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
My copy published 1992
Source: bought it for my son

Everyone knows the poem "The Raven" and probably several of Poe's many stories.  I had never read any of Poe's other poems prior to reading this book.  Not surprisingly, there's not a happy one in the bunch. Poe's life was difficult and filled with the lose of loved ones, many of the deaths being memorialized in his poetry. 

There were only a couple of poems that I liked in this collection; I far prefer Poe's stories to his poetry.  The relentless sadness, the strange cadence of some of the poems, and the similarity between so many of the poems all served to make this slim volume one I had to fight to get through.  This one pretty much sums up so many of them and so much more succintly:

"Deep In Earth"
Deep in earth my love is lying
And I must weep alone.

I read this collection as part of the Gilmore Girls Challenge.  I can't tell you how much I wish Rory would have read "The Tell-Tale Heart" instead of "The Raven!"

Sonnets From The Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 Sonnets From The Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

My copy of the book is reprinted from the fourth edition of "Poems" by Barrett Browning which was published in 1856.

Source: this one's mine--although when I got it, I can't recall.  Strangely there is no publication in my slim, leather-bound edition.  I know I've had it more than 30 years.

Reading these sonnets, I was struck by several things.  They just don't right 'em like this any more and I'm not sure anyone else ever did.  These sonnets are a collection of very personal poems, not just love sonnets.  The Barret family was once well-to-do but when Elizabeth was 18 her family fell on hard time.  Depending on the source, she began to suffer from a mysterious ailment at 15 or 20 that doctors at the time were never able to accurately diagnosis,  leaving her something of an invalid and a morphine addict. Both of these circumstances were very obvious this collection as was a strong sense of God.

Elizabeth Barret met Robert Browning after he wrote to her because he enjoyed one of her poetry collections.  Six years younger than her and far more worldly, she seemed to have trouble believing that he loved her as much as he professed.  The collection that is now referred to as "Sonnets From The Portuguese" is a very personal journey through the course of their courtship including her questioning of his assertions of love and her doubts about leaving her family for him.  Robert convinced her to publish the collection even though Elizabeth felt they were too personal; they came upon the title as a way to disguise the fact that Elizabeth had written them to Robert.  "My little Portuguese" was his nickname for her, hence the choice to pretend that the collection was a translation of Portuguese poetry.

There are many lovely poems in this collection, although some of them left me scratching my head.  Of course, Barret Browning's  most famous poem is this one:

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

 I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, --I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life!  --and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death."

Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

Where The Sidewalk Ends: poems and drawings of Shel Silverstein
176 pages
Published November 1974 by Harper Collins
Source:My kids got this one for Christmas 1995

The Barnes and Noble site says this one is recommended for ages 9-12; to which I say phooey. My boys were both younger than this when they got this book and they loved it. I'm a couple of years older than 12 now and I found it delightful.

Silverstein uses all types of rhyme and poetry, including one poem that runs down the neck of a giraffe and another that is written on a woman's nose. He never talks down to the reader and using humor even manages to instill a few life lessons. I've read this book many times with my kids but this time suddenly caught the poem advocating vegetarianism, the one bemoaning the idea of bringing a child into the a world filled with pollution and war, and one advising against racism.

No Difference

Small as a peanut,
Big as a giant,
We're all the same size
When we turn off the light.

Rich as a sultan,
Poor as a mite,
We're all worth the same
When we turn off the light.

Red, black or orange,
Yellow or white,
We all look the same
When we turn off the light

So maybe the way
To make everything right
Is for God to just reach out
And turn off the light!

How did I not notice these before? Oh yeah--it was probably because some of the time I was traveling down memory lane. Where The Sidewalk Ends includes the poems "Boa Constrictor" which was recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary and "The Unicorn" recorded by The Irish Rovers, both songs I loved growing up.

One of my kids favorites:

The Hat

Teddy said it was a hat,
So I put it on.
Now Dad is saying,
"Where the heck's
the toilet plunger gone?

When my oldest got a sink plunger as a joke a few months after they got this book, Mini-me promptly placed it on his head just like Shel Silverstein's drawing!

I picked this one up again as part of the You've Got Mail challenge. I had so much fun with this one, I'm going to have to pull another of the kids' poetry books off the shelf!