I wondered whether I would get on with Alice Walker's style of one-or-two-word lines stretched vertically into stanzas. But it was ok, I found myself able to connect with it, feel its rhythm. The poems are a mixture, addressing some of life's deepest things, not always brilliantly, but sometimes ...
This is one of my new favorite books.The Color Purple tells the story of Celie, a black woman who finds herself in one abusive situation after another. Her stepfather molests her, her husband beats her, and she is worn down by bearing and caring for children. Over the course of the book, howeve...
(1.5 / 5) "--if poems can actually be called writing... From that first volume [of my poetry] to this, what remains the same is the sense that, unlike 'writing,' poetry chooses when it will be expressed, and under what circumstances. Its requirements for existence remain mysterious. In its spo...
This is my first Alice Walker novel, so my expectations might have been a bit too high. I think if it had been a first novel from a new author, I would have been pleasantly surprised, but when I picked this one up I was kind of hoping for a dazzling work from a master author late in her career.I ...
I find difficulty rating some books – and writers – and Alice Walker is one of those writers I often find it difficult to "rate" using stars. Star ratings, I think, are misleading and somewhat misguided. People make judgments on the basis of star ratings, forgetting that reading is a largely pers...
In this illuminating book, Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist and acclaimed poet Alice Walker reveals her remarkable philosophy of life. Curiously, this labor of love started with the author’s signature: Faced with the daunting task of providing autographs for multiple copies of one of her poetry co...
Alice Walker's life and writing legacy intrigues me. I stayed with this book longer than I normally would have, since some parts of me couldn't let it go. Walker always seems to speak to my experience, to my trajectory, and her words both console and exhort. Yet she's speaking to a larger audien...
"There was a boulder lodged in my throat. My heart surged pitifully. I knew what the boulder was; that it was a word; and that behind that word I would find my earliest emotions.”- Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of JoyTashi, an African woman from the Olinkan tribe, marries Adam, an American ...
"In Uncle Rafe's house Suwelo always seemed to himself to be in a rather idle state of mind. His life had stopped, at least the life he thought he was building with Fanny, at he was suspended. He sometimes felt literally as if his feet did not touch upon the ground. It was a relief. And at times ...
"By The Light of my Father’s Smile is held together by a construct that at first seems artificial initially: a father is looking down on his daughter after his own death. She was not even aware at the time of my death that she missed me. Poor child. She did not cry at my funeral. She was a sto...
A Startlingly Poignant Look...Alice Walker's The Third Life of Grange Copeland, was a startlingly poignant read. Once done reading I was brought to tears and rendered speechless. I was overwhelmed with thoughts, and revelations past and present. I hadn't previously put everything I had experienc...
The more I learn about black-, especially African-American history and culture, the more I understand how great Walker’s writing is and how well she uses her fiction to impart knowledge. Sure, stories are meant to entertain but in Walker’s case they are also clearly written to educate. Every sing...
This first volume of poetry established Walker as a poet of unusual sensitivity and power. All of the poems in this collection were written either in East Africa, where Walker spent the summer of 1965, or during her senior year at Sarah Lawrence College. “Brief slashing poems-young and in the sun...
Some wonderful stuff here. My three favorites?The hopeful:WE ALONEWe alone can devalue gold by not caring if it falls or rises in the marketplace. Wherever there is gold there is a chain, you know, and if your chain is gold so much the worse for you.Feathers, shells and sea-shaped stones are all...
We were assigned “Everyday Use” to read in English class, but the URL the professor provided was broken so I went to the library and checked out this book. I enjoyed the story so much that I thought I’d give the rest of the book a try. I don’t normally read African-American and/or (what could be...
This was a very simple and straight forward poetry collection. Unlike other poetry collections I have read, this was a really quick read!Overall I enjoyed this collection. One of my major complaints was about Walker's line breaks, capitalization, and punctuation. There were some poems were each l...
Suddenly he felt he might be passing up a great chance. He felt injured by her choice. Had Mem bypassed him because he was not a well-taught man? His pride was hurt. Gloomily he thought of his poverty and his dependence on Josie and Lorene. All he owned were the clothes on his back and they were ...
ALICE WALKER: No. [laughter] M.J.: Do you remember why you wrote it, or why you started to write? A.W.: I think I started to write because I was in love with the feel of pen on paper, or pencil on paper, and that it was something that I could do in solitude, and it was something that seemed to...
Still, it had taken a lot out of her, especially in the area of sexual response. She had never been particularly passionate with him, not even during the early years of their marriage; it was more a matter of being sexually comfortable. After the birth of the child she simply never thought of him...
Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth The Last Time I Left Our HouseThe last time I leftOur houseYou were sittingOn the stoopSmiling.Your new girlfriendHad deckedYou outIn brand-newKhaki shortsA rosyPeachyShirt& stoutIntrepidSandals.Your wavyHair andWavering eyesBespokeA forlornAnticipa...
I began with ‘Greetings from the great sovereign state of Mississippi,’ which brought laughter.] WHEN I CAME to Sarah Lawrence in 1964, I was fleeing from Spelman College in Atlanta, a school that I considered opposed to change, to freedom, and to understanding that by the time most girls enter c...
White women are being murdered in California. Native American women are being murdered in New Mexico. Hispanic women are being murdered in New York. Chicana women are being murdered in Texas. All of us are being attacked because we are women, and no one really cares about us but us. Let us unders...
As he said, it wasn’t really rape. She had not screamed once, or even struggled very much. To her, it was worse than rape because she felt circumstances had not permitted her to scream. As Tommy Odds said, he was just a lonely one-arm nigger down on his luck that nobody had time for any more. But...
It smelled like Miss Lissie—old-fashioned white roses under a hot summer sun. Turning it over, he was surprised to see, in Miss Lissie’s ancient script, all sharp points and decisively rounded o’s: “They burned us so thoroughly we did not even leave smoke.” He did not know what he expected to fin...
A Poem Traveled Down My Arm 21KissingYourArmI kissTheMountain.Don’t youthinktheyintendto incineratethe Earthwho createa napalmto burnour fleshevenunderwater?How longwehave sleptdreamingof gettingeverywheresomewherefaster.In ourlifetimeno endtowar.What do birdsthinkofus?Fleetingthoughtwheredidyoug...
She sat away from him, gazing into the low fire, her long crusty bottom lip hanging. She was not married. Was not pretty. Was not anybody much. And he was all she had. “Lawd, why don’t that doctor come on here?” she moaned, tears sliding from her sticky eyes. She had not washed since Snooks took ...
For, even before we are dead, they are busy trying to bury us. Were we black? Were we women? Were we gay? Were we the wrong shade of black? Were we yellow? Did we, God forbid, love the wrong person, country or politics? Were we Agnes Smedley or John Brown? But, most of all, did we write exactly w...