Good Night Willie Lee
Posted: 2019/02/20 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, Fiction, Poetry | Tags: 2019, african american, Alice Walker, book lust i, book review, february, Fiction, Poetry, relationships Leave a commentWalker, Alice. Good Night Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning. SanDiego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979.
Reason read: Walker’s birth month is in February.
Here’s how I read Good Night Willie Lee. I inhaled a poem, held my breath to ponder the collection of words within it, and exhaled my understanding of the connection to life. One poem at a time. Like rhythmic yoga breaths; like steady waves upon the shore, I took my time with each one of them. Each poem deserved to be fully digested as such. For when you read Walker’s poetry you get the sense she died a little with each offering. A small offering of her soul mixed with the words.
Favorite line – from the poem called Confession: “through cracks in the conversation.” What a beautiful image.
Author fact: Walker also wrote Meridian and Possessing the Secret of Joy, two novels also on my Challenge list.
Book trivia: the last poem in the book explains the title. I picture her father’s funeral.
Nancy said: Pearl said that Walker is best known for her award winning novel, The Color Purple, but “readers shouldn’t miss her poetry” (Book Lust p 2).
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “A…My Name is Alice” (p 1).
Ceremony
Posted: 2018/11/19 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, E-Books, Fiction | Tags: 2018, book lust i, book review, Fiction, Leslie Silko, native american, november, Poetry, veterans 1 CommentSilko. Ceremony. New York: Penguin Books, 1986,
Reason read: November is American Indian Heritage month.
I like to compare reading Silko to drinking a icy cold glass of limoncello. It is not the kind of thing you gulp down in chug-a-lug like fashion. It is better to take in small sips of the scenes in order to let them slide over your subconscious and filter slowly into your brain. Think of it this way. It is as if you have to give the words time to mellow and ultimately saturate your mind.
First things first. When you get into the plot of Ceremony what you first discover is that Tayo is a complicated character. After being a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II, alcoholism, battle fatigue (now called post traumatic stress disorder), mental illness, and guilt all plague Tayo. It’s as if threads of guilt tangle in his mind, strangling his ability to comprehend reality, especially when other veterans on the Laguna Pueblo reservation turn to sex, alcohol and violence to cope. Friends are no longer friendly.
Next, what is important to pay attention to are the various timelines. There is the time before the war and the time after at the mental health facility with the timeline with Thought (Spider) Woman, Corn Woman, and Reed Woman. Each timeline dips back and forth throughout the story. Tayo struggles to reconcile what it means to be Native American, with all its traditions and beliefs, with the horrors of war and captivity. How does one as gentle as Tayo forgive himself for being a soldier? “He stepped carefully, pushing the toe of his boot into the weeds first to make sure the grasshoppers were gone before he set his foot down into the crackling leathery stalks of dead sunflowers” (p 155). He can’t even inadvertently harm a bug.
Interspersed between the plot are pages of lyrical poetry.
Throughout it all, I found myself weeping for Tayo’s lost soul.
Quotes I liked, “Somewhere, from another room, he heard a clock ticking slowly and distinctly, as if the years, the centuries, were lost in that sound. (p 98) and “But as long as you remember, it is part of the story we have together” (p 231).
Author fact: Silko was born in Albuquerque in 1948, the same year as my mother.
Book trivia: As I mentioned earlier, Silko’s poetry is part of the story.
Nancy said: Nancy said Leslie Marmon Silko is one of her favorite American Indian writers.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “American Indian Literature” (p 23).
Animals
Posted: 2018/07/25 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, Fiction, Poetry | Tags: 2018, Alice Mattison, book lust i, book review, family, Fiction, july, Poetry, women Leave a commentMattison, Alice. Animals. Cambridge, MA: Alice James Books, 1979.
Reason read: July is Mattison’s birth month.
A collection of thirty poems rich and pulsating with human life make up Animals by Alice Mattison. Women come alive to argue, have sex, give birth, seek memories, laugh out loud, fiercely love family, change identities, experience sickness, learn to rescue, and accept failure. There is courage and wit in Mattison’s vision. Each poem is heartbeats and breath, like a roar of vibrant life.
Lines I liked, “throwing echoes between eardrums” (from Husband, p 11) and “The wildlife grows shameless in spring: it’s like putting out your hand in the dark and feeling a penis” (from Creatures, p 26).
Author fact: Mattison began her writing career as a poet.
Book trivia: Animals is Alice Mattison’s first book.
Nancy said: Nancy didn’t say anything specific about Animals but she did say Alice Mattison is “a multitalented writer” (p 1).
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the very first chapter called “A…My Name is Alice” (p 1).
New and Collected Poems
Posted: 2018/04/17 Filed under: Book Reviews, BookLust I, Fiction, Poetry | Tags: 2018, book lust i, book review, Czeslaw Milosz, Fiction, march, Poetry, Poland Leave a commentMilosz, Czeslaw. New and Collected Poems (1931 – 2001). New York: Harper Collins, 2001.
Reason read: March is National Poetry Month in some parts of the world. Stay tuned because April is also a poetry month…in some parts of the world.
Milosz’s poetry touches on a myriad of topics. There are echoes of childhood, listening to a mother softly climb the shadowy stairs or watching a father quietly read in the library. There are a series of poems that lovingly describe a house and its inhabitants. Linked poetry that are meant to be read hand in hand with the next.
Confessional: I did not get through the entire collection. I could have kept the book through April since April is also a month for poetry, but I opted not to.
Favorite quote, “Love is sand swallowed by parched lips” (from Hymn, page 13).
Author fact: Milosz was a Polish cultural attache in France. As an aside, whenever I think of a cultural attache I think of Robin Williams in the movie, The Birdcage. I can’t help it.
Book trivia: New and Collected Poems celebrates the career of Milosz, including the very first poem he wrote at age twenty. I think it would have been cool to include angst-ridden/written poetry from when Milosz was a teenager, because you know he must have written some!
Nancy said: Nancy said Milosz’s New and Collected Poems was a “splendid introduction to those who don’t know his work” (p 187).
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Polish Poetry and Prose” (p 187).
