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Head Off & Split
Winner of 2011 National Book Award for Poetry
Winner of 2012 GLCS Award for Poetry
Winner of 2012 SIBA Book Award for Poetry
Nominee for 2012 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry
The poems in Nikky Finney’s breathtaking new collection Head Off & Split sustain a sensitive and intense dialogue with emblematic figures and events in African American life: from civil rights matriarch Rosa Parks to former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, from a brazen girl strung out on lightning to a terrified woman abandoned on a rooftop during Hurricane Katrina. Finney’s poetic voice is defined by an intimacy that holds a soft yet exacting eye on the erotic, on uncanny political and family events, like her mother’s wedding waltz with South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond, and then again on the heartbreaking hilarity of an American president’s final State of the Union address.
Artful and intense, Finney’s poems ask us to be mindful of what we fraction, fragment, cut off, dice, dishonor, or throw away, powerfully evoking both the lawless and the sublime.
Winner of 2012 GLCS Award for Poetry
Winner of 2012 SIBA Book Award for Poetry
Nominee for 2012 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry
The poems in Nikky Finney’s breathtaking new collection Head Off & Split sustain a sensitive and intense dialogue with emblematic figures and events in African American life: from civil rights matriarch Rosa Parks to former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, from a brazen girl strung out on lightning to a terrified woman abandoned on a rooftop during Hurricane Katrina. Finney’s poetic voice is defined by an intimacy that holds a soft yet exacting eye on the erotic, on uncanny political and family events, like her mother’s wedding waltz with South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond, and then again on the heartbreaking hilarity of an American president’s final State of the Union address.
Artful and intense, Finney’s poems ask us to be mindful of what we fraction, fragment, cut off, dice, dishonor, or throw away, powerfully evoking both the lawless and the sublime.
97 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2010
49 people are currently reading
2346 people want to read
About the author
Nikky Finney
31 books131 followersNikky Finney was born at the rim of the Atlantic Ocean, in South Carolina, in 1957. The daughter of activists and educators, she began writing in the midst of the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements. With these instrumental eras circling her, Finney's work provides first-person literary accounts to some of the most important events in American history.
In 1985, and at the age of 26, Finney's debut collection of poetry, On Wings Made of Gauze, was published by William Morrow (a division of HaperCollins). Finney's next full-length collection of poetry and portraits, RICE (Sister Vision Press, 1995), was awarded the PEN America-Open Book Award, which was followed by a collection of short stories entitled Heartwood (University Press of Kentucky, 1998). Her next full-length poetry collection, The World Is Round (Inner Light Books, 2003) was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Award sponsored by the Independent Booksellers Association. In 2007, Finney edited the anthology, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (University of Georgia Press/Cave Canem), which has become an essential compilation of contemporary African American writers. Her fourth full-length collection of poetry, Head Off & Split, is a National Book Award Winner.
Finney and her work have been featured on Russell Simmons DEF Poetry (HBO series), renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson's feature The Meaning of Food (a PBS production) and National Public Radio. Her work has been praised by Walter Mosley, Nikki Giovanni, Gloria Naylor and the late CBS/60 Minutes news anchor Ed Bradley. Finney has held distinguished posts at Berea College as the Goode Chair in the Humanities and Smith College as the Grace Hazard Conklin Writer-in-Residence.
Finney is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University Kentucky. She is a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets
In 1985, and at the age of 26, Finney's debut collection of poetry, On Wings Made of Gauze, was published by William Morrow (a division of HaperCollins). Finney's next full-length collection of poetry and portraits, RICE (Sister Vision Press, 1995), was awarded the PEN America-Open Book Award, which was followed by a collection of short stories entitled Heartwood (University Press of Kentucky, 1998). Her next full-length poetry collection, The World Is Round (Inner Light Books, 2003) was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Award sponsored by the Independent Booksellers Association. In 2007, Finney edited the anthology, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (University of Georgia Press/Cave Canem), which has become an essential compilation of contemporary African American writers. Her fourth full-length collection of poetry, Head Off & Split, is a National Book Award Winner.
Finney and her work have been featured on Russell Simmons DEF Poetry (HBO series), renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson's feature The Meaning of Food (a PBS production) and National Public Radio. Her work has been praised by Walter Mosley, Nikki Giovanni, Gloria Naylor and the late CBS/60 Minutes news anchor Ed Bradley. Finney has held distinguished posts at Berea College as the Goode Chair in the Humanities and Smith College as the Grace Hazard Conklin Writer-in-Residence.
Finney is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University Kentucky. She is a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets
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January 17, 2012
Back in the early 80s, my friend Geoff and I went to a play at the Provincetown Playhouse in downtown New York. An NYU group (sorry, Riah) was presenting a "Brechtian" political satire directed at Reagan's presidency. By the time it was over, I was on the verge of signing up as a Republican as a protest against the self-righteous smug simplistic (continue to fill in adjectives as long as you feel like it) posturing.
This book of poetry makes me feel much the same way. On a very abstract level, I share most of Finney's political preferences (in favor of the wisdom of an older generation of African Americans, against George W Bush and idiotic TV anchors, etc.) But by the time I'd made it half way through this book, I was dreading what would come next. The shots are almost all cheap, the perspective smug (see above for adjectives). Worst of all, for a book of poetry, the language lies flat on the page.
There's a seal on the cover that says this won the National Book Award for poetry, which is no doubt what led me to it. Beats the hell out of me why.
To be very clear--this one star review is coming from within the circle of long-time readers and admirers of African American poetry. For a sampling of what's happening now, skip this and go to Patrica Smith, Terrence Hayes, Yusef Komunyakaa, Wanda Coleman, or even Rita Dove, not a big favorite of mine but someone who covers some of the same turf as Finney with delicacy and grace.
This book of poetry makes me feel much the same way. On a very abstract level, I share most of Finney's political preferences (in favor of the wisdom of an older generation of African Americans, against George W Bush and idiotic TV anchors, etc.) But by the time I'd made it half way through this book, I was dreading what would come next. The shots are almost all cheap, the perspective smug (see above for adjectives). Worst of all, for a book of poetry, the language lies flat on the page.
There's a seal on the cover that says this won the National Book Award for poetry, which is no doubt what led me to it. Beats the hell out of me why.
To be very clear--this one star review is coming from within the circle of long-time readers and admirers of African American poetry. For a sampling of what's happening now, skip this and go to Patrica Smith, Terrence Hayes, Yusef Komunyakaa, Wanda Coleman, or even Rita Dove, not a big favorite of mine but someone who covers some of the same turf as Finney with delicacy and grace.
July 28, 2015
Nikky Finney’s poems remind me of all the things I love about poetry: The linguistic skill of the writer, a willingness to cover interesting topics and most important, doing it in a way everyone can understand and appreciate. Like Langson Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks, Haki Madhabuti, Lucille Clifton the tradition continues. Political, Poignant, Passionate and Personal, a very enjoyable book.
Favorite poem - "Alice Butler"
Ms. Finney received the National Book Award in 2011 for this volume of poetry and her acceptance speech is also included in the edition that I read, but for a real treat, look it up on YouTube. Hearing her acceptance speech is phenomenal.
March 10, 2012
My response to this book, a local book club selection, was lukewarm. Finney is certainly an accomplished poet, capable of subtlety, complexity, and wonderful word play. However, this book has shown me how political poetry often doesn't work. I can understand writing a poem or poems about a politician or political event. In fact, I don't think that is done often enough. But that poem will have a short shelf life. Thus, I have no interest in reading a 19 sonnet sequence about George Bush. The music-related "suite" on Condoleeza Rice was somewhat more engaging with it's ongoing piano and music metaphors, but I was never that fascinated with her to begin with and the poems do not create a new fascination (either positive or negative). She just seems bland.
On the other hand, I loved the poem about Rosa Parks, "Red Velvet," because it makes the dowdy profession of seamstress become threatening:
A woman who understands the simplicity pattern,
who wears a circle bracelet of straight pins there,
on the tiny bend of her wrist. A nimble on-the-dot
woman, who has the help of all things, needle sharp,
silver, dedicated, electric, can pull cloth and others
her way, through the tiny openings she and others
before her have made.
A fastened woman
can be messed with, one too many times.
To me, this poem, though highlighting a person who committed an act that became a watershed moment in the civil rights movement, is about the human spirit, and the accumulation of small actions, in a way that the Bush and Rice poems are not.
The poem about Strom Thurmond, "Dancing with Strom," is enough NOT about Thurmond that it was successful to me. Thurmond is a figurehead of entrenched political racism, while the poem is about two entirely different responses to him, enduring revulsion and amusement at his defeat, both treated as valid. And both embodied by people who are part of a wedding he is attending.
This book is far from being solely political. Its charm for me lies in its many depictions of strong women, from a cranky old woman who refuses to retreat in the face of a hurricane to a girl fascinated by lightning. Its complexity lies not only in dealing with race and class, our various responses to both, but also that the personal and the political are interrelated. What makes a hurricane seem like a minor inconvenience to an old black woman? Why does the fascination lightning/power mark the girl as an "Old Maid-to-be." It's a rare poem here that doesn't bring the person into relationship with the larger society.
One that does seem purely personal is "Cattails," which sets up an interesting abstraction by referring to the women involved as the one "who drives" and the one "being driven to." It sets up an interesting tension between the person motivated by passion and the person who is the surprised object of passion. It's a poem full of enjoyable playfulness.
[....] The didn't-
know-she-was-coming-woman stares at she who has just arrived.
She tries to read the mighty spinach leaves in her bowl, privately
marveling at the driving woman's muscled spontaneity. [...]
And further on:
[....] She wonders where this mad driving
woman will sleep tonight. She is of two driving minds. One con-
vertible. One hardtop. [...]
This book also provides a wide variety of stanzas and line lengths. Her verse is markedly free, sometimes prosy and descriptive or narrative and sometimes broken and leaning toward the surreal. This variety is part of what kept me reading.
Despite the virtues of this volume, I'm not going to run out and buy more books by Finney. I have respect for her now that I've read her work, but this volume hasn't made me hungry to read more. Alas, I'm at a loss to say quite why.
On the other hand, I loved the poem about Rosa Parks, "Red Velvet," because it makes the dowdy profession of seamstress become threatening:
A woman who understands the simplicity pattern,
who wears a circle bracelet of straight pins there,
on the tiny bend of her wrist. A nimble on-the-dot
woman, who has the help of all things, needle sharp,
silver, dedicated, electric, can pull cloth and others
her way, through the tiny openings she and others
before her have made.
A fastened woman
can be messed with, one too many times.
To me, this poem, though highlighting a person who committed an act that became a watershed moment in the civil rights movement, is about the human spirit, and the accumulation of small actions, in a way that the Bush and Rice poems are not.
The poem about Strom Thurmond, "Dancing with Strom," is enough NOT about Thurmond that it was successful to me. Thurmond is a figurehead of entrenched political racism, while the poem is about two entirely different responses to him, enduring revulsion and amusement at his defeat, both treated as valid. And both embodied by people who are part of a wedding he is attending.
This book is far from being solely political. Its charm for me lies in its many depictions of strong women, from a cranky old woman who refuses to retreat in the face of a hurricane to a girl fascinated by lightning. Its complexity lies not only in dealing with race and class, our various responses to both, but also that the personal and the political are interrelated. What makes a hurricane seem like a minor inconvenience to an old black woman? Why does the fascination lightning/power mark the girl as an "Old Maid-to-be." It's a rare poem here that doesn't bring the person into relationship with the larger society.
One that does seem purely personal is "Cattails," which sets up an interesting abstraction by referring to the women involved as the one "who drives" and the one "being driven to." It sets up an interesting tension between the person motivated by passion and the person who is the surprised object of passion. It's a poem full of enjoyable playfulness.
[....] The didn't-
know-she-was-coming-woman stares at she who has just arrived.
She tries to read the mighty spinach leaves in her bowl, privately
marveling at the driving woman's muscled spontaneity. [...]
And further on:
[....] She wonders where this mad driving
woman will sleep tonight. She is of two driving minds. One con-
vertible. One hardtop. [...]
This book also provides a wide variety of stanzas and line lengths. Her verse is markedly free, sometimes prosy and descriptive or narrative and sometimes broken and leaning toward the surreal. This variety is part of what kept me reading.
Despite the virtues of this volume, I'm not going to run out and buy more books by Finney. I have respect for her now that I've read her work, but this volume hasn't made me hungry to read more. Alas, I'm at a loss to say quite why.
October 25, 2011
Nikky Finney writes poems that are political and sometimes funny. Take, for instance, the poems making up The Condoleeza Suite. If only!
My favorites were the very first poem about the errand girl, with this beautiful line:
"She would rather be the one deciding what she keeps and what she throws away."
(Okay, better in context, but there you go).
My other favorite was Cattails, about the lengths we go to for love, even when it isn't asked for.
My favorites were the very first poem about the errand girl, with this beautiful line:
"She would rather be the one deciding what she keeps and what she throws away."
(Okay, better in context, but there you go).
My other favorite was Cattails, about the lengths we go to for love, even when it isn't asked for.
June 11, 2019
So good. I think I'll just return to the beginning and read it all over again.
December 9, 2011
I am amazed by the deft characterization of many of these persona poems. In just the first few poems, we enter the lives of a seemingly-biographical woman buying fish, Rosa Parks as a seamstress, neglected victims of Hurricane Katrina, and a woman brave in the face of Rita, all of whom come across vividly. I was less interested in the view given of G.W. Bush giving a speech as a cowboy or the "Condoleezza Rice Suite" poems about her love of piano and tailored suits: in both cases, the parody or 'message' got in the way of the artful elements of the poems. (In general, I think persona poems are more effective when they attempt to understand the character, not criticize them.) Then the poems switch from imagining historical characters to more personal, often-sexy, always-sensual poems of girlhood and womanhood.
The language throughout is so rich and subtly clever, even in parts of those more indulgent poems, that I didn't want to stop reading. There are stanzas that sing aloud.
The language throughout is so rich and subtly clever, even in parts of those more indulgent poems, that I didn't want to stop reading. There are stanzas that sing aloud.
May 17, 2016
Update 02/10:
Video review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4wgI...
Immediate thoughts:
I finished this book 4 days ago and I still can't put how I feel about it into words. So I'm just going to leave these here for now:
Nikky Finney reads "Left"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty6z9...
Nikky Finney's National Book Award for Poetry (2011) acceptance speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2q15...
Video review here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4wgI...
Immediate thoughts:
I finished this book 4 days ago and I still can't put how I feel about it into words. So I'm just going to leave these here for now:
Nikky Finney reads "Left"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty6z9...
Nikky Finney's National Book Award for Poetry (2011) acceptance speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2q15...
March 1, 2020
"Left" is my favorite poem in the collection (about the racist response to Hurricane Katrina by the US government), and I highly recommend it as a one off poem. Finney is her sharpest as a poet when she's bringing to light the racism within our political system. She's at her most delicate as a poet when she's writing about her family (especially her grandmother), but we didn't get many of those poems in this collection. I wasn't particularly compelled by the "fish" thread that ran throughout this collection and some of the poems were frankly inaccessible to me. I enjoyed her other collection, The World is Round, much more, but will continue to read her poems as a way to think about race and politics in the US because she has a lot of substance to say about that topic.
July 11, 2023
This was so hard for me to read because I lacked a lot of the contextual background and language. This poetry collection felt really intimate but I just didn't have access to it - which is absolutely my bad, I should have put in the work to understand it further.
December 4, 2025
4.5/5
went to a poetry on the porch with gabby calvocoressi and nikky finney. bumped into my PI whose lab i worked in during my gap year. turns out, she is MARRIED TO nikky finney?!
cried on the bus reading "resurrection of the errand girl: an introduction" on the bus. now in my list of favorite poems of all time. i am typically not a huge fan of super long poems but i loved style and length. the storytelling and lyricism is incredible. i cannot wait to read her fiction book heartwood and see how that plays out in a longer piece.
favorite poems of collection:
-resurrection of the errand girl: an introduction
- the aureole
- penguin, mullet, bread
- head off & split
went to a poetry on the porch with gabby calvocoressi and nikky finney. bumped into my PI whose lab i worked in during my gap year. turns out, she is MARRIED TO nikky finney?!
cried on the bus reading "resurrection of the errand girl: an introduction" on the bus. now in my list of favorite poems of all time. i am typically not a huge fan of super long poems but i loved style and length. the storytelling and lyricism is incredible. i cannot wait to read her fiction book heartwood and see how that plays out in a longer piece.
favorite poems of collection:
-resurrection of the errand girl: an introduction
- the aureole
- penguin, mullet, bread
- head off & split
July 4, 2012
I sent her a note today; this, after reading 2 pieces outloud to friend and husband yesterday. Steve Pulley - gratitude from the bottom of my heart; I'm including the whole note, because it reveals my passion:
A writer friend visited yesterday, speaking of Head Off & Split and you, Nikky Finney. I sat next to him and read out loud to my husband one or two of the lines in your poems. Then I stopped. I started reading whole poems to the group. My friend's eyes filled with tears and sometimes laughter. My soul was electrified. Electrified. How does such soul brilliance and its attendant words appear. I can answer that: generational suffering, abuse and courage and crisis and victory.
The victory is yours. I stand in the light of your words, and my soul has been captured. I will share your work with everyone I come in contact with, which means my writing class for homeless women, GoodReads, FB, fellow writers, other writing workshops I conduct.
Humbly with reverence and gratitude! (Loved the "Plunder" poem; I wrote an essay in my latest book You Carry the Heavy Stuff on Language After the 100 Year War-if you want to see it, i'll send a copy.
Blessings,
Esther Bradley-DeTally aka www.sorrygnat.wordpress.com
A writer friend visited yesterday, speaking of Head Off & Split and you, Nikky Finney. I sat next to him and read out loud to my husband one or two of the lines in your poems. Then I stopped. I started reading whole poems to the group. My friend's eyes filled with tears and sometimes laughter. My soul was electrified. Electrified. How does such soul brilliance and its attendant words appear. I can answer that: generational suffering, abuse and courage and crisis and victory.
The victory is yours. I stand in the light of your words, and my soul has been captured. I will share your work with everyone I come in contact with, which means my writing class for homeless women, GoodReads, FB, fellow writers, other writing workshops I conduct.
Humbly with reverence and gratitude! (Loved the "Plunder" poem; I wrote an essay in my latest book You Carry the Heavy Stuff on Language After the 100 Year War-if you want to see it, i'll send a copy.
Blessings,
Esther Bradley-DeTally aka www.sorrygnat.wordpress.com
May 4, 2018
Written in the middle of the Obama years, Finney's collection is largely rooted in the politics of the 90s and the early 2000s. Thus it runs a lot of risks, political poetry often doesn't age well, and it was dated even when it was released, and yet there is a rooted a black woman's common sense from the South that makes feel both more and less dated. The first poem of the collection, "Red Velvet," focusing on Rosa Parks, hits hard, and her works on Condoleezza Rice, play with an ambiguity that is compelling, references to black New Orleans and the optics of Katrina are also compelling. As a collection most of the persona poems, Finney has a good mixture of rage and empathy that help her embody the characters. Even though the events were relatively recent, much of the references risk feeling particularly dated, Finney avoids this by the power of her poetic vision.
February 14, 2015
Eloquent is the first word that comes to mind when perusing this collection of poems. The second word is lyrical, as most of her poems have that music like quality. This book of poems is smart, funny, creative, candid and historical.
"Nine months after, December 1, 1955, Claudette
Colvin, fifteen, arrested for keeping her seat; before that,
Mary Louise Smith. The time to act, held by two pins."
That comes from a poem for Rosa Parks entitled Red Velvet. How about this line from the Condoleezza suite, concerto no. 12. "(shoes most often speak in the language of feet)" There are gems like this throughout, so it is a collection that deserves shelf space.
"Nine months after, December 1, 1955, Claudette
Colvin, fifteen, arrested for keeping her seat; before that,
Mary Louise Smith. The time to act, held by two pins."
That comes from a poem for Rosa Parks entitled Red Velvet. How about this line from the Condoleezza suite, concerto no. 12. "(shoes most often speak in the language of feet)" There are gems like this throughout, so it is a collection that deserves shelf space.
February 19, 2012
Nikky Finney won the National Book Award for poetry with this collection of exceptional poems. "Red Velvet" is the consummate tribute to Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement, while "Left" is the most eloquent final word on the Katrina "massacre". "Head Off & Split" will tilt your comfort zone and tickle the poetic senses. It is heart breaking yet redemptive.
February 28, 2012
Nikki is a masterful poet and Head Off and Split is like the cream that rises to the top of a glass bottle of unpasteurized milk... it's just so darned good you want more and more. An amazing collection from a truly incredible poet.
January 29, 2016
This book knocked me out--politically and socially charged poems that don't feel dogmatic, that feel highly personal. That's hard to write, but Finney has a great ear and a spot on eye as well as sense of where the heart and rhetoric intersect. A terrific book!
January 26, 2011
This is the best volume of poetry that Nikky Finney has written. Simply beautiful and such important work.
April 25, 2024
I’ve never read any of Nikky Finney’s work before, & I gave this a shot after reading the first poem in the collection & liking it. I quickly found that the first poem wasn’t indicative of the rest of the book.
I could appreciate the rhythmic nature to Finney’s work (even if the poems rarely strayed into different forms), but found that the subject matter didn’t hold up well. I think there’s a risk in writing a deeply political book, in the sense that you’re relying on the reader having necessary context in order to appreciate the poetry. I found that these poems didn’t stand on their own without their context, and came off as a little one-note.
I’m glad to have read this because the title poem is fabulous, but I don’t know that Finney’s work is a fit for me.
I could appreciate the rhythmic nature to Finney’s work (even if the poems rarely strayed into different forms), but found that the subject matter didn’t hold up well. I think there’s a risk in writing a deeply political book, in the sense that you’re relying on the reader having necessary context in order to appreciate the poetry. I found that these poems didn’t stand on their own without their context, and came off as a little one-note.
I’m glad to have read this because the title poem is fabulous, but I don’t know that Finney’s work is a fit for me.
July 2, 2018
Last lines of the final poem in Head Off & Split:
“Grow until you die, but before you do, leave your final kiss: Lay mint or orange eucalyptus garland, double tuck those lips. Careful to the very end what you deny, dismiss, & cut away.”
“Grow until you die, but before you do, leave your final kiss: Lay mint or orange eucalyptus garland, double tuck those lips. Careful to the very end what you deny, dismiss, & cut away.”
December 20, 2023
“For two years, until their velvet bodies begin (and end) to fall to / pieces, every time the driven-to woman passes the bouquet of them, there, in the / vase by the front door, she is reminded of what falling in love, without permission, / smells like.”
February 2, 2018
I don't read a lot of ground up poetry, so I'm not super surprised to say I didn't understand a lot of this. I'm glad I read it, I was challenged, but I honestly didn't understand some of them.
May 22, 2012
Head Off & Split basically sums up my feelings about this book. Several poems including Red Velvet, Left, Penguin Mullet Bread and Liberty Street Seafood blew my mind wide open. They are masterpieces - as good as anything you'll find in contemporary American poetry - that speak in original musical language and convey a world of meaning. Many others just made me want to split. The Condoleeza Suite and Plunder (a 19-part poem about Bush's final State of the Union speech) seemed to squander Finney's considerable talents. The tone seemed wrong on the Bush poem and Condoleeza Rice just isn't a meaty enough topic for Finney's abilities.
Red Velvet tackles the Rosa Park story from a side angle. Here's a few lines I particularly loved
You cannot keep messing with a sweet-looking
Black woman who knows her way around velvet.
A woman who can take cotton and gabardine,
seersucker and silk, swirl tapestry, and hang
boiled wool for the house curtains, to the very
millimeter. A woman made of all this is never to
be taken for granted, never to be asked to move
to the back of anything, never ever to be arrested.
My favorite was Penguin, Mullet, Bread. It's told from the perspective of a baby in a high chair watching her mother chew up her fish, take out the bones. It's sensuous and full of pure love.
My begging eyes
& dark mauve lips close in slow around
her fingers. The pounded succulent
fish & spit lands center of my tongue.
Leave the Republicans to stew in their own juices and tell us about like Nikky Finney.
Red Velvet tackles the Rosa Park story from a side angle. Here's a few lines I particularly loved
You cannot keep messing with a sweet-looking
Black woman who knows her way around velvet.
A woman who can take cotton and gabardine,
seersucker and silk, swirl tapestry, and hang
boiled wool for the house curtains, to the very
millimeter. A woman made of all this is never to
be taken for granted, never to be asked to move
to the back of anything, never ever to be arrested.
My favorite was Penguin, Mullet, Bread. It's told from the perspective of a baby in a high chair watching her mother chew up her fish, take out the bones. It's sensuous and full of pure love.
My begging eyes
& dark mauve lips close in slow around
her fingers. The pounded succulent
fish & spit lands center of my tongue.
Leave the Republicans to stew in their own juices and tell us about like Nikky Finney.
July 1, 2015
I did not understand most of the poetry in this book. I wish I did. It won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2011! But I have never been able to comprehend this sort of poetry (I don't even know what "sort" of poetry it is) and I suppose it will forever be outside my realm of comprehension. I wish I could give it more stars, but two is appropriate for how I felt: it was an okay read for me.
I think I understood part one, "The Hard-Headed." Those poems seemed to be mostly historical/history (the first was about Rosa Parks). They struck me as being quite poignant.
But then parts two and three, "The Head-over-Heels" and "The Head-Waters," seemed to be more about personal things, memoir-like. Again, I didn't understand them, so I can't say for sure what I read. Sure, I understood the words, but to my mind they just mostly seemed like pretty words arranged in a random pattern. I need a version that includes an explanation of the themes/morals/subjects in regular speech. Is there such a version?
And then the last two pages were for Nikky Finney's Acceptance Speech at the National Book Award Award Ceremony. It seemed to me to be expressed in the same manner as her poetry (in verse?). But I think I understood it, or at least I understood most of it. I can't say the same for the majority of the poems that earned her the National Book Award, though, and that saddens me greatly. :'(
I think I understood part one, "The Hard-Headed." Those poems seemed to be mostly historical/history (the first was about Rosa Parks). They struck me as being quite poignant.
But then parts two and three, "The Head-over-Heels" and "The Head-Waters," seemed to be more about personal things, memoir-like. Again, I didn't understand them, so I can't say for sure what I read. Sure, I understood the words, but to my mind they just mostly seemed like pretty words arranged in a random pattern. I need a version that includes an explanation of the themes/morals/subjects in regular speech. Is there such a version?
And then the last two pages were for Nikky Finney's Acceptance Speech at the National Book Award Award Ceremony. It seemed to me to be expressed in the same manner as her poetry (in verse?). But I think I understood it, or at least I understood most of it. I can't say the same for the majority of the poems that earned her the National Book Award, though, and that saddens me greatly. :'(
August 11, 2012
It's been a long time since I've read poetry, and this collection inspires me to get back into it.
This collection is beautiful because it's complex without being overly confusing or wordy. I hate poetry that sounds pretty but you have no clue what was said. The subject matter here is simple, but at the same time it's not simple at all.
The best poem, undoubtedly, is the first in the collection, Red Velvet, about Rosa Parks. And I thought, "Okay, this may be a whole political collection, but I would be okay with that if it's all like this." (It's not all political, but work with me.) This poem has such beautiful lines as...
Yeah.
I just flipped through the book again to find another glowing example, but that would be pointless because I'd just be retyping the entire book. There's one about George Bush that I wasn't totally into, but the poems following that make up for it. Head Off & Split (the poem itself) is fantastically creepy, and I read parts of it twice over to try to absorb everything.
I may have to look into more of Finney's works.
This collection is beautiful because it's complex without being overly confusing or wordy. I hate poetry that sounds pretty but you have no clue what was said. The subject matter here is simple, but at the same time it's not simple at all.
The best poem, undoubtedly, is the first in the collection, Red Velvet, about Rosa Parks. And I thought, "Okay, this may be a whole political collection, but I would be okay with that if it's all like this." (It's not all political, but work with me.) This poem has such beautiful lines as...
The bus driver, who put you off when you were
twenty-eight, would never be given the pleasure
of putting you off anything again. When you
asks you to move you cross your feet at the ankle.
Yeah.
I just flipped through the book again to find another glowing example, but that would be pointless because I'd just be retyping the entire book. There's one about George Bush that I wasn't totally into, but the poems following that make up for it. Head Off & Split (the poem itself) is fantastically creepy, and I read parts of it twice over to try to absorb everything.
I may have to look into more of Finney's works.
May 19, 2012
Simply amazing. Justly deserved National Book Award for Poetry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFSiKx...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFSiKx...
October 6, 2012
Phenomenal poetry. Hearing her read her poetry increased its value tenfold, if that is possible. I would give it 10 stars if Goodreads would allow.
Want to read
December 9, 2012NPR recommendation; National Book Award
March 30, 2013
SIX WORD REVIEW: Finney has a novel in her.
December 10, 2017
In Nikky Finny’s National Book Award collection, Head Off and Split, she captures the distress of people Appalachia, specifically the Black community, and teaches us how the life breeds strong, resilient characters.
Although Montgomery is not in Appalachia, Finney begins the volume with a dedication for Rosa Parks, which evokes elements of history, politics, and Finney’s personal life; yet however strong this poem seems, her second poem, “Left,” resonates more because of her elaborate repetition, a quality she believes is holy.
Throughout “Left,” Finney plays on excerpts for Rudyard Kipling’s “A Counting-out Song.”
The woman with pom-pom legs waves
her uneven homemade sign:
Pleas Help Pleas
and if the e has been left off the Pleas e
do you know simply
by looking at her
that it has been left off
because she can’t spell
(and therefore is not worth saving)
or was it because the water was rising so fast
there wasn’t time?
Eenee Menee Mainee Mo!
Catch—a—a
The low-flying helicopter does not know
the answer. It catches all of this on patriotic tape,
but does not land, and does no drop dictionary,
or ladder.” (“Left,” 26-42)
The speaker describes “the woman with pom-pom legs” earlier in the poem as strong-headed and determined; she “insists on not being helpless” (11). She is a strong woman standing on the roof of her house after a hurricane waiting for relief helicopters who, instead, observe her without helping. Finney shows the woman as either illiterate or under duress, both of which are ignored by the media who record the woman. In this excerpt, “Left,” and the volume, Finney demonstrates the prevalence of ignored poverty in the community. People outside Appalachia, even people who see the destruction, ignore instead of helping and watch them suffer.
Stylistically, Finney uses line breaks to emphasize the singular lines or the couplets resting in-between longer passages. She repeats “Eenee Menee Mainee Mo” to show how outsiders pick and choose who to save and who not too. Through this lack of disregard for African Americans, Finney demonstrates the life of black Americans living in the South endure.
In addition to strong women influences, like Rosa Parks and the woman on the roof (“The Hard Headed” section), Finney explores topics of love, sex, and coming of age in a section labeled “Head over Heels.” Her poem “Cattails” shows the length a woman will go to chase someone she loves in hopes of getting the woman to fall in love with her. The speaker “drives across five states just to see her,” and “sleep[s] in rest areas with her seat lowered all the way.” Another poem, titled “The Clitoris,” explores the value of its subject in a brief but valuable and tasteful manner, showing a girl’s realizing her womanhood. She uses images of Africa and whales to explore nonsexual ideas and plainly state what a clitoris is without the awkwardness that usually follows such subject.
The last section is called “The Head Waters,” an image usually attributed to a waterway close to its source, but in Finney’s examples, it means returning to one’s roots. Finney ends her collection with the poem “Head Off and Split,” a play on its own title, as the poem explores both a woman’s departure from home and a fishermonger’s dissection of a fish. Finney shows how the woman, despite where she travels, returns home, “for fifty years / she has left them here on this curb 803 times counting/ today” (41-43). Yet each time she returns home, she returns to the fishmonger who, as if the girl is a fish, cuts her where “his knife / enters at the lip of my sternum then dives Down / to the Cheerio of my navel…my throat separates from the rest of me” (106-11). He tears her apart and sells parts of her body. The imagery of the fish shows how dismembered the speaker feels when she leaves home, as if she is missing parts of herself.
As severe as the topics may seem—civil rights, illiteracy, poverty, politics—Finney finds a way to show readers how harsh life builds strong people, particularly strong women, and how the women become a part of the environment, learning to be headstrong, to fall in love, and return to their sources.
Nikky Finney intertwines her personal experiences with history that has formed her into the strong, domineering woman she is today. Head Off and Split is a homage to her roots and a teaching opportunity to outside observers.
Nikky Finney composes Head Off and Split through the musical qualities of repetition present in all the poems. She unites personal, historic, and political topics. Some people find this entanglement difficult or unnecessary, however, Finney shows us the difficulties African Americans living in Appalachia, and the South, have endured and will continue to endure in their strong spirits.
Head Off and Split will have you returning to it over and over again.
Although Montgomery is not in Appalachia, Finney begins the volume with a dedication for Rosa Parks, which evokes elements of history, politics, and Finney’s personal life; yet however strong this poem seems, her second poem, “Left,” resonates more because of her elaborate repetition, a quality she believes is holy.
Throughout “Left,” Finney plays on excerpts for Rudyard Kipling’s “A Counting-out Song.”
The woman with pom-pom legs waves
her uneven homemade sign:
Pleas Help Pleas
and if the e has been left off the Pleas e
do you know simply
by looking at her
that it has been left off
because she can’t spell
(and therefore is not worth saving)
or was it because the water was rising so fast
there wasn’t time?
Eenee Menee Mainee Mo!
Catch—a—a
The low-flying helicopter does not know
the answer. It catches all of this on patriotic tape,
but does not land, and does no drop dictionary,
or ladder.” (“Left,” 26-42)
The speaker describes “the woman with pom-pom legs” earlier in the poem as strong-headed and determined; she “insists on not being helpless” (11). She is a strong woman standing on the roof of her house after a hurricane waiting for relief helicopters who, instead, observe her without helping. Finney shows the woman as either illiterate or under duress, both of which are ignored by the media who record the woman. In this excerpt, “Left,” and the volume, Finney demonstrates the prevalence of ignored poverty in the community. People outside Appalachia, even people who see the destruction, ignore instead of helping and watch them suffer.
Stylistically, Finney uses line breaks to emphasize the singular lines or the couplets resting in-between longer passages. She repeats “Eenee Menee Mainee Mo” to show how outsiders pick and choose who to save and who not too. Through this lack of disregard for African Americans, Finney demonstrates the life of black Americans living in the South endure.
In addition to strong women influences, like Rosa Parks and the woman on the roof (“The Hard Headed” section), Finney explores topics of love, sex, and coming of age in a section labeled “Head over Heels.” Her poem “Cattails” shows the length a woman will go to chase someone she loves in hopes of getting the woman to fall in love with her. The speaker “drives across five states just to see her,” and “sleep[s] in rest areas with her seat lowered all the way.” Another poem, titled “The Clitoris,” explores the value of its subject in a brief but valuable and tasteful manner, showing a girl’s realizing her womanhood. She uses images of Africa and whales to explore nonsexual ideas and plainly state what a clitoris is without the awkwardness that usually follows such subject.
The last section is called “The Head Waters,” an image usually attributed to a waterway close to its source, but in Finney’s examples, it means returning to one’s roots. Finney ends her collection with the poem “Head Off and Split,” a play on its own title, as the poem explores both a woman’s departure from home and a fishermonger’s dissection of a fish. Finney shows how the woman, despite where she travels, returns home, “for fifty years / she has left them here on this curb 803 times counting/ today” (41-43). Yet each time she returns home, she returns to the fishmonger who, as if the girl is a fish, cuts her where “his knife / enters at the lip of my sternum then dives Down / to the Cheerio of my navel…my throat separates from the rest of me” (106-11). He tears her apart and sells parts of her body. The imagery of the fish shows how dismembered the speaker feels when she leaves home, as if she is missing parts of herself.
As severe as the topics may seem—civil rights, illiteracy, poverty, politics—Finney finds a way to show readers how harsh life builds strong people, particularly strong women, and how the women become a part of the environment, learning to be headstrong, to fall in love, and return to their sources.
Nikky Finney intertwines her personal experiences with history that has formed her into the strong, domineering woman she is today. Head Off and Split is a homage to her roots and a teaching opportunity to outside observers.
Nikky Finney composes Head Off and Split through the musical qualities of repetition present in all the poems. She unites personal, historic, and political topics. Some people find this entanglement difficult or unnecessary, however, Finney shows us the difficulties African Americans living in Appalachia, and the South, have endured and will continue to endure in their strong spirits.
Head Off and Split will have you returning to it over and over again.
October 13, 2019
Head Off & Split, a collection of poems written by Nikky Finney, won the 2011 National Book Award, and deservedly so. Immediately, the book opens with a powerful introduction poem, titled “Resurrection of the Errand Girl: An Introduction.” With this poem, Finney showcases her storytelling ability, and at the same time sets up her collection of poems beautifully.
…She understands
sharpness & duty. She knows what a blade can reveal & destroy. She has come
to use life’s points and edges to uncover life’s treasure. She would rather be the
one deciding what she keeps and what she throws away. (27-30)
When she was just a girl, the Errand Girl wanted her fish head off and split; now, as the girl has matured into a woman, she decides she wants control over her fish. She doesn’t want the fishmonger to head off and split her fish anymore because she wants to decide what to keep and what to throw away. This introduction serves a higher purpose, and one that Finney develops throughout her work: be wary of what you throw away. Not all you once thought was trash is useless; be conscious of your own maturation and development. Most of all, “Careful to the very end what you deny, dismiss, & cut away” (“Instruction, Final: To Brown Poets from Black Girl with Silver Leica”).
After the introduction, Finney begins the first of three sections in the book, titled “The Hard – Headed”. This section tells the story of African American women such as Rosa Parks, Condoleezza Rice, and black women in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Finney details Parks’ bravery and her sacrifice for African Americans and seamlessly weaves in problems of oppression and segregation. “Left”, a poem about two black women and a baby stranded on a rooftop during Hurricane Katrina, specifically calls out racial issues happening in the deep south:
People who outlived bullwhips & Bull
Connor, historically afraid of water and routinely
fed to crocodiles, left in the sun on the sticky tar-
heat of roofs to roast like pigs, surrounded by
forty feet of churning water, in the summer
of 2005, while the richest country in the world
played the observation game…” (80-86)
Finney’s unapologetic way of taking racism head-on in “The Hard – Headed” is what makes it in particular so gripping to read.
The second section of this collection, “The Head – Over – Heels”, gives the reader intense visuals of love- in this case, love between two women. “Thunderbolt of Jove,” the first poem in the second section, is a powerfully written poem with detailed language (“inky nigrescent sky”, “florid, tangerine jagged lines of corn colored bombs”) that serves to show the unabashed audacity of children in the face of danger. From there, the selection quickly turns to show the power of love. Perhaps the best poem in this section, “Cattails” is written about a woman who drives across five states to be with another woman. It drives home the power that can overtake someone when they feel love for another.
The third and final segment of Finney’s book, “The – Head – Waters”, is a strong sprint across the finish line. From beginning to end, Finney incorporates ideas about politics, black culture, and personal decisions in this section. The poem that stands out the most is the title poem, the second to last in the book. The Errand Girl, now a woman, departs from her parents’ house after Christmas and finds herself being cut open and sold like a fish. In this poem, we get striking visuals and breathtaking description:
My disconnected eyes glaze over I have a long way
to drive without my head The thinking part of me
wobbles Then falls The exquisite tip of his knife
enters at the lip of my sternum Then dives Down (102-105)
…
smaller knife for the rest of my drive The skin of my
torso is peeled back to reveal What is left (118-119)
…
he says He will only take the head and the pearl green
eyes Next time he says The lungs The heart sac
The liver Will all have to go along What can you do (123-125)
From beginning to end, the collection of poems that Finney offers us are incredibly meaningful and wonderfully powerful. “Head Off & Split” captivates your thoughts and demands your attention. She gives us many ideas to think about- oppression, politics, carelessness, and love among them. This collection is a must-read and should be atop the lists of literature fans everywhere.
…She understands
sharpness & duty. She knows what a blade can reveal & destroy. She has come
to use life’s points and edges to uncover life’s treasure. She would rather be the
one deciding what she keeps and what she throws away. (27-30)
When she was just a girl, the Errand Girl wanted her fish head off and split; now, as the girl has matured into a woman, she decides she wants control over her fish. She doesn’t want the fishmonger to head off and split her fish anymore because she wants to decide what to keep and what to throw away. This introduction serves a higher purpose, and one that Finney develops throughout her work: be wary of what you throw away. Not all you once thought was trash is useless; be conscious of your own maturation and development. Most of all, “Careful to the very end what you deny, dismiss, & cut away” (“Instruction, Final: To Brown Poets from Black Girl with Silver Leica”).
After the introduction, Finney begins the first of three sections in the book, titled “The Hard – Headed”. This section tells the story of African American women such as Rosa Parks, Condoleezza Rice, and black women in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Finney details Parks’ bravery and her sacrifice for African Americans and seamlessly weaves in problems of oppression and segregation. “Left”, a poem about two black women and a baby stranded on a rooftop during Hurricane Katrina, specifically calls out racial issues happening in the deep south:
People who outlived bullwhips & Bull
Connor, historically afraid of water and routinely
fed to crocodiles, left in the sun on the sticky tar-
heat of roofs to roast like pigs, surrounded by
forty feet of churning water, in the summer
of 2005, while the richest country in the world
played the observation game…” (80-86)
Finney’s unapologetic way of taking racism head-on in “The Hard – Headed” is what makes it in particular so gripping to read.
The second section of this collection, “The Head – Over – Heels”, gives the reader intense visuals of love- in this case, love between two women. “Thunderbolt of Jove,” the first poem in the second section, is a powerfully written poem with detailed language (“inky nigrescent sky”, “florid, tangerine jagged lines of corn colored bombs”) that serves to show the unabashed audacity of children in the face of danger. From there, the selection quickly turns to show the power of love. Perhaps the best poem in this section, “Cattails” is written about a woman who drives across five states to be with another woman. It drives home the power that can overtake someone when they feel love for another.
The third and final segment of Finney’s book, “The – Head – Waters”, is a strong sprint across the finish line. From beginning to end, Finney incorporates ideas about politics, black culture, and personal decisions in this section. The poem that stands out the most is the title poem, the second to last in the book. The Errand Girl, now a woman, departs from her parents’ house after Christmas and finds herself being cut open and sold like a fish. In this poem, we get striking visuals and breathtaking description:
My disconnected eyes glaze over I have a long way
to drive without my head The thinking part of me
wobbles Then falls The exquisite tip of his knife
enters at the lip of my sternum Then dives Down (102-105)
…
smaller knife for the rest of my drive The skin of my
torso is peeled back to reveal What is left (118-119)
…
he says He will only take the head and the pearl green
eyes Next time he says The lungs The heart sac
The liver Will all have to go along What can you do (123-125)
From beginning to end, the collection of poems that Finney offers us are incredibly meaningful and wonderfully powerful. “Head Off & Split” captivates your thoughts and demands your attention. She gives us many ideas to think about- oppression, politics, carelessness, and love among them. This collection is a must-read and should be atop the lists of literature fans everywhere.
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