Forget It

by Anastacia-Reneé

Poetry. Anastacia Renee's FORGET IT draws the reader into the churning seas of dissolution -- marriage, family, identity, livelihood -- in language unknotted from the constraints of punctuation, syntax, sense-- "eaten into seedless cherries"--and plunged into the fabular scape/scope of dreams, myth, fairytales, faith, race. Phantom births, ghosts, half-grown children, sex, betrayal, violence, anger, female body, the bloody aftermaths of dissolution sprawling, placental and umbilical, in the urgent, haunted language of dreaming and memory. City and speaker dissolve into one another, boundaries vanquished. What remains after dissolution? Talking to herself. From whence do (k)new form(s) arise? A "revelatory hymn," matrix upon which self and sense are (re-) configured as her own, Anastacia Renee's FORGET IT dances on the grave of the lost--fiery tempest, a phoenix of language and presence. When we wake up, nothing is forgotten.

Genres: Poetry, Memoir

86 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2017

About the author

Anastacia-Renee (She/They) is a queer writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, speaker and podcaster. She is the author of (v.) (Black Ocean) and Forget It (Black Radish) and, Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere and Sidenotes from the Archivist forthcoming from Amistad (an imprint of HarperCollins). They were selected by NBC News as part of the list of "Queer Artist of Color Dominate 2021's Must See LGBTQ Art Shows." Anastacia-Renee was former Seattle Civic Poet (2017-2019), Hugo House Poet-in-Residence (2015-2017), Arc Artist Fellow (2020) and Jack Straw Curator (2020).

Her work has been anthologized in: Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Life and Literature, Home is Where You Queer Your Heart, Furious Flower Seeding the Future of African American Poetry, Afrofuturism, Black Comics, And Superhero Poetry, Joy Has a Sound, Spirited Stone: Lessons from Kubota’s Garden, and Seismic: Seattle City of Literature. Her work has appeared in, Hobart, Foglifter, Auburn Avenue, Catapult, Alta, Torch, Poetry Northwest, A-Line, Cascadia Magazine, Hennepin Review, Ms. Magazine and others. Renee has received fellowships and residencies from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, VONA, Ragdale, Mineral School, and The New Orleans Writers Residency.

Reviews

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anastacia Renee's hybrid memoir is a creative masterpiece. In seven sections: Pre-Memoir, Memoir, Post Memoir, Post Memoir (Recollect), (Re)member, Alice Spinning, and Memory (Awake), she takes us on a journey. She uses blank space, footnote-like notes, speaking to self, dreams, and frames (like in photography), to introduce her history and present: her ancestors, their abuse, her abuse, her children, and alice.

In the Memoir section she writes, "in this memoir you know they won't believe you." She presents a series of Dreams (a-i). This inspiring work slings insights from every direction. In the Post Memoir section we have her response to the city of Seattle (where we both live), a gem every Seattleite should read. The City (1) starts, "the city sits on itself like a tired woman after a long day of being black. it never excuses itself for crushing us with her weight & we don't complain...after all, we are alive, we are drinking in the rain because the rain makes us blurry & we don't have to talk about all the times e don't really see ourselves."

In (Re)member is the No Fairy Tale sequence, in (5) she writes, "once upon a time a girl was eaten by the world." The writing, poetic, lyric, stream of consciousness, and a section with letters to alice, slows you down, it is layered and multi-faceted. Read this book to pry open your mind.

[Michele Cacano · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's like walking through a museum looking at paintings made of words that are also someone's diary.

Sometimes, I found it hard to read the longer passages written as footnotes, in italics, in a smaller font...it just physically exhausts my eyes.

Overall, there is a lot of heartfelt story here. The pain of being a mother and also a person, and the history behind the person, that makes the person as well as the hurts the person, and how that is related to the children, or seen in the children... it's all very deep and thought-provoking.

The structure is unique. It has the feel of an academic text, but sparse, like found pages. There text is tight; small, single spaced, rarely raving the bottom third of the page... creating a feeling of "what lies beneath the surface" for me. The layers of mind chatter and built-in, built-up actions, reactions and expectations that drive our interactions with the world seem both hidden and forthcoming.

I actually read the first half of this book last August, but got busy and just picked it up and started it over. I find it inspiring.

[Nicole Hardina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh! I didn't know it could be this. This is my core reaction to Anastacia Renee's Forget it, a reaction I've had to few other works. It's difficult to write beautifully and harder to make something new, and here, the writer does both. I recently saw Anastacia Renee perform. Before reading one of her series, she told us we might lose our places, and that that would be okay, we could jump back in. She was right - I did. The same thing happened sometimes in reading this book. I was with her, and then something I read took me away, and into my own space, and then I was with her again, and I'd been reading her words all along. It's a delicious sort of collaboration of thoughts, this experience. For use when life must be lived.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 this is not just poetry but a revelation of how to weave contemporary, fantastical, and culture within a work that has a pathway to reveal itself through each memoir pre & post. Tolbert's language is fluid from the core text to the footnotes allowing readers to lose themselves down the "rabbit hole" that alice does when she sees you and you see her.

[Greg Bem · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible book of books, each section spinning on its own, seven sections in one, each breathing life into the other, critical and honest, and emblematic of the poet's ongoing installation and performance work.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feel so proud Black Radish books did this book, even though I had nothing to do with it. Really amazing!

[Degan Walters · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the footnotes and the pop culture references but I couldn’t get into the flow of reading it.