You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened by Arisa White is a poetry collection I wish existed when I was a teenager. If asked to describe the colYou’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened by Arisa White is a poetry collection I wish existed when I was a teenager. If asked to describe the collection in a nutshell, I’d describe it as a combination of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Ani DiFranco’s “Not a Pretty Girl,” and Adrienne Rich’s A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far.
White begins her collection with a meditation on language.
There are little words that can fit in little places if you say them small enough. (p.11)
This poem, titled “Tail,” is a gateway to a collection that reminds us that words and language, in general, can be reworked and reclaimed.
In You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, Arisa White takes us on a poetic journey through the world as it is experienced by many of us in the LGBTQ community. Many of the poems are titled with words and phrases that are considered offensive by many. One poem, for example, is titled “Mashing Cookies.” The expression, according to Urban Dictionary, refers to, “When two females rub their hotboxes together with their legs in a scrissor-like formation.” The action of “Mashing Cookies” isn’t so different from heteronormative intercourse. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the act is made to sound perverse when, in fact, there is nothing perverse about it. In her poem titled “Mashing Cookies,” White writes,
Not all of us are lesbians on this island circled by orcas. We’ve come because we’ve been nesting stories, hollow voices that need time to season. We all need to loot our minds for the woman who surrendered to wolves. (p. 68)
As with many of the other poems in You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, White challenges the language that has sullied the physical experience. Hopefully, readers will think twice before perpetuating stigma when referring to non-heteronormative sexuality.
You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened is a powerful collection that succeeds in empowering those of us who have been silenced by stigma. It is a collection that could bring comfort and a sense of empowerment to anyone who has encountered prejudice because of their sexuality. ...more
Few novels can universally stand the test of time. Jane Eyre, like Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights and Emma, is a novel that women (and men) reFew novels can universally stand the test of time. Jane Eyre, like Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights and Emma, is a novel that women (and men) relate to, regardless of the fact that it was written centuries ago. There are countless film adaptations of Jane Eyre that, in my opinion, are growing tiresome. Isn’t it time to give readers something new and innovative? That is precisely what Rita Maria Martinez does with her new poetry collection, The Jane and Bertha in Me.
In The Jane and Bertha in Me, we meet contemporary versions of characters from Charlotte Bronte’s novel. In this new world, we get to see Jane who works at Macy’s, visit a counselor. Martinez makes Bertha, Mr. Rochester’s first wife, a Stepford wife—a step up from the character who crawls on her hands and knees, making animal noises.
In their present-day settings, our modern Jane, Bertha, Alice and Blanche struggle to make sense of the world around them. This world is one of tattoos, department stores, therapy, and beauty products. The Jane and Bertha in Me is an interesting poetic take on a beloved novel. Martinez’s collection would be a great book for students to read alongside the classic.
***This review is part of Poetic Book Tours ...more
If you look Rebecca Foust's new poetry collection, Paradise Drive, Press 53, 2015, up on Amazon, you will notice that it is "frequently bought togethe If you look Rebecca Foust's new poetry collection, Paradise Drive, Press 53, 2015, up on Amazon, you will notice that it is "frequently bought together" with Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Intrigued? You should be.
Paradise Drive is a small collection of narrative sonnets. We meet Pilgrim, Foust's protagonist, who is "A buzz-kill: dour, dry, dull". Pilgrim has left her home in Altoona, a railroad town in Pennsylvania, and moved to the ritzy Marin County, California. Pilgrim is the character you want to show up on an episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. At a cocktail party, she hides out in the host's bathroom, keeping herself occupied with reading material left by the toilet. Later on, Pilgrim finds herself playing a game of her own. The game is not a round of George and Martha's "Get The Guests," but one where Pilgrim notices references made throughout the night to the seven deadly sins. There is a sonnet for each sin. In "Lust, Retrieving Her Car," Foust writes,
When she picked up, the voice told her to "call for a good time." Just a butt dial, she's sure. What pimp would dare phone her husband here? (Page 9)
In Paradise Drive, Rebecca Foust tackles contemporary issues like autism, divorce, cheating and drug addiction. Foust skillfully uses an old poetic form to tell a modern-day story which makes Paradise Drive lively and unique. Foust is a fantastic poet, but she is an equally talented storyteller and satirist.
*This review is part of Poetic Book Tours. ...more
Dylan Thomas said, “The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it.” This month, Poet Sweta Srivastava Vikram hasn’t added one goodDylan Thomas said, “The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it.” This month, Poet Sweta Srivastava Vikram hasn’t added one good poem, she has added forty-nine. Wet Silence: Poems About Hindu Widows, Modern History Press, 2015, is a collection of forty-nine poems written from the perspectives of widows living in India. The widows are never named, but they each share a common bond: their husbands have passed away and they are expected to live in mourning for the rest of their lives. The women in Wet Silence are primarily from middle-class, urban families. Some of the women loved their husbands, while others resented them. Some of the widows experienced physical and verbal abuse, infidelity and humiliation. All of the women, regardless of their experiences, are expected to a live a life of celibacy.
Wet Silence is divided into three sections: “I can hear a white cotton sari weaving at the shop,” “I didn’t promise to sleep in your shadow,” and “Silence became my lover, that’s why.” The first section focuses on grieving widows. The women who speak their minds in “I can hear a white cotton sari weaving at the shop,” tell of loneliness and sorrow. They grieve for their lost partners and try desperately to hang onto memories. One woman tells of this sorrow in the poem, “My husband is leaving.”
It’s his touch gentle as velvet, his angelic tone that I’m seeking. Bidding farewell to our dream, my curse: I keep on living
In the second section of Wet Silence, “I didn’t promise to sleep in your shadow,” the reader is introduced to women who are more burdened by the loss of their husbands. The stories in the beginning are similar in tone to the stories in “I can hear a white cotton sari weaving at the shop.” We meet a woman, for instance, who grieves for her husband who died prematurely. She grieves, but she also resents his dying and leaving her, “In a home we never built/where the mosquitos feast on my skin,” (“I water my memory of you”). Section two takes a sharp turn. We are introduced to women who have endured cruelty and abuse. The last woman we hear from in section two says—you can almost hear her rage,
I didn’t turn you into a pig, as hearts cold as clay like to proclaim. Pigs are loyal, develop relationships with their mates, remain family oriented, I am told. Pigs like you perform acts That I won’t mention in this poem.
In “Silence became my lover, that’s why” we are introduced to widows who are less concerned about how society perceives them. In the second to last poem, my personal favorite, titled “Working girl,” the woman admits,
Many shadows enter my room at night. My soul is tired but my feet are resting as I smile at my client list to hold my own.
Each poem in Sweta Srivastava Vikram’s collection introduces the reader to a unique widow, a woman with her own story to tell. Vikram has created a magnificent tapestry woven with the words from women who are usually forced to stay silent. Wet Silence is a collection that will resonate with all readers....more
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