khetsia's reviews
136 reviews

Hauts et bas de la jalousie!

3.5/5: Renée Vivien était membre du cercle Paris-Lesbos que fréquentai plusieurs femmes lesbiennes au début du 20ème siècle. On la notamment, on la surnomma « Sappho 1900 » puisque son œuvre était largement centrée sur la vie et les amours des femmes.

J’ai adoré lire ces 17 nouvelles juste après ma lecture de L’aimée. Mes préférés sont « Le prince charmant », « L’amitié féminine » et « Blanche comme l’écume ». Certaines ne m’ont pas vraiment touché, mais je garde de cette lecture une nouvelle passion pour les révisions féministes de écrits/savoir dits « classiques »…

J’ai maintenant envie de plonger dans l’œuvre de ses contemporaines saphiques (Natalie Barney, Lianne de Pougy, Colette, Violette Leduc, …)

Mixed feelings so will take the time to let it sink it in before writing up something…

In all honesty, I really have had a difficult time engaging with contemporary poets especially the “woke” ones. As someone who enjoys and appreciates the arts of singing and dancing, I can now recognize that, above all else, what makes me feel all fuzzy inside when Im reading verses from a stylistically rigorous poet is that rhythm, that musicality with which their inner life is conveyed….

But yeah, when reading Angelou’s “I Shall Not be Moved”, I was met with coarse and dissonant verses after verses, and it really put me off at first. But I persevered and was ultimately able to appreciate the meaning of her poetry as an unapologetic cry born from anger and disillusionment. Her poetry seeks, in my opinion, to speak and provide solace to these less polished, these ugly and bitter and judged-for-being-broken parts of ourselves, in turn forcing us to nuance these judgments…

Personal recommendations for the hurried…
First, poems that we’re not a vibe for their weird endorsement or heteronormativity/traditional gender roles within heterosexual relationships…: Seven Women’s Blessed Assurance & In my Missouri.

But for those who are ready to hold space to the intergenerational grief of African Americans, here are some of the poems that immediately hit me:

Coleridge Jackson, Why Are They Happy People, Son to Mother, These Yet to Be United States, Me and My Work, Changing, Born that Way, Televised, London, and this gem

Our Grandmothers

She lay, skin down on the moist dirt,
the canebrake rustling
with the whispers of leaves, and
loud longing of hounds and
the ransack of hunters crackling the near branches.

She muttered, lifting her head a nod toward freedom,
I shall not, I shall not be moved.

She gathered her babies,
their tears slick as oil on black faces,
their young eyes canvassing mornings of madness.
Momma, is Master going to sell you
from us tomorrow?

Yes.
Unless you keep walking more
and talking less.
Yes.
Unless the keeper of our lives
releases me from all commandments.
Yes.
And your lives,
never mine to live,
will be executed upon the killing floor of innocents.
Unless you match my heart and words,
saying with me,

I shall not be moved.

In Virginia tobacco fields,
leaning into the curve
of Steinway
pianos, along Arkansas roads,
in the red hills of Georgia,
into the palms of her chained hands, she
cried against calamity,
You have tried to destroy me
and though I perish daily,

I shall not be moved.

Her universe, often
summarized into one black body
falling finally from the tree to her feet,
made her cry each time in a new voice,
All my past hastens to defeat,
and strangers claim the glory of my love,
Iniquity has bound me to his bed,

yet, I must not be moved.

She heard the names,
swirling ribbons in the wind of history;
nigger, nigger bitch, heifer,
mammy, property, creature, ape, baboon,
whore, hot tail, thing, it.
She said, But my description cannot
fit your tongue, for
I have a certain way of being in this world,

and I shall not, I shall not be moved.

No angel stretched protecting wings
above the heads of her children,
fluttering and urging the winds of reason
into the confusion of their lives.
They sprouted like young weeds,
but she could not shield their growth
from the grinding blades of ignorance, nor
shape them into symbolic topiaries.
She sent them away,
underground, overland, in coaches and
shoeless.
When you learn, teach
When you get, give.
As for me,

I shall not be moved.

She stood in midocean, seeking dry land.
She searched God's face.
Assured.
she placed her fire of service
on the altar, and though
clothed in the finery of faith,
when she appeared at the temple door,
no sign welcomed
Black Grandmother. Enter here.

Into the crashing sound,
into wickedness, she cried,
No one, no, nor no one million
ones dare deny me God. I go forth
alone, and stand as ten thousand.

The Divine upon my right
impels me to pull forever
at the latch on Freedom's gate.

The Holy Spirit upon my left leads my
feet without ceasing into the camp of the
righteous and into the tents of the free.

These momma faces, lemon-yellow, plum-purple,
honey-brown, have grimaced and twisted
down a pyramid of years.
She is Sheba and Sojourner,
Harriet and Zora,
Mary Bethune and Angela,
Annie to Zenobia.

She stands
before the abortion clinic.
confounded by the lack of choices.
In the Welfare line,
reduced to the pity of handouts
Ordained in the pulpit, shielded
by the mysteries.
In the operating room,
husbanding life.
In the choir loft,
holding God in her throat.
On lonely street corners,
hawking her body.
In the classroom, loving the
children to understanding.

Centered on the world's stage,
she sings to her loves and beloveds,
to her foes and detractors:
However I am perceived and deceived,
however my ignorance and conceits,
lay aside your fears that I will be undone,

for I shall not be moved.

I feel bad for giving it such a low rating, but the story was soooo drawn out. In terms of a slave narrative I think it served its purpose in shining light on the atrocities of slavery. In terms of a memoir, it was very redundant and too expanse for my liking. Overall, It was okay and so two stars I give it.

2/5: Wasn’t my cup of tea, but I am grateful to Joséphine for sharing this story of love for the Toundra.

3.5/5

What I enjoyed: By holding space for his own perspective on matters of religion, race relations, the Negro Problem, identity, amongst other polemic topic of the mid 20th century, he invites us to do the same with equal self-negation.

What could have been more of a vibe: this book is a little all over the place; whenever I felt like I was catching onto what he was saying there he was indulging into another eloquent yet misplaced tangent

Would recommend it to those interested in Baldwin’s universe, but for the general reader I don’t know that this would be an “immediately YES”…

2,5/5: J’ai bien aimé les réflexions sur l’exil (vs la migration), l’identité et les ressemblances entre l’Occident et l’Orient. Ce qui m’a déplu c’est l’histoire d’amour qui m’a semblé irréel, les personnages unidimensionnels, l’histoire décousue et la fin abrupte.