Living by the Word: Essays

by Alice Walker

Essays from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple--"Vintage Alice passionate, political, personal, and poetic" (Los Angeles Times).
In a follow-up to her collection of essays, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens, Walker takes a look at a vast range of issues both personal and global, from her experience with the filming of The Color Purple, to the history of African-American narrative traditions, to global threats of pollution and nuclear war. Walker travels broadly and maintains an eye for detail, resulting in a captivating journey of conscience by one of the most distinctive political and artistic voices in America. Readers will find inspiration and insights in even the briefest entries of this enthralling anthology.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Alice Walker including rare photos from the author's personal collection.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Feminism, Memoir, Literature, African American, Race

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 1988

About the author

Noted American writer Alice Walker won a Pulitzer Prize for her stance against racism and sexism in such novels as The Color Purple (1982).

People awarded this preeminent author of stories, essays, and poetry of the United States. In 1983, this first African woman for fiction also received the national book award. Her other books include The Third Life of Grange Copeland , Meridian , The Temple of My Familiar , and Possessing the Secret of Joy . In public life, Walker worked to address problems of injustice, inequality, and poverty as an activist, teacher, and public intellectual.

Reviews

[Daniel Clausen · Rating 4 out of 5]

What struck me about "Living by the Word" was just how much the book seemed a process of healing. Many of the essays seemed as if they were written during a period of hibernation. It seemed that for Alice Walker, major writing projects were a source of great physical strain as if the act of writing some works was a battle for her soul.

I feel the same way about some of my writing projects...and it's interesting that I write similar types of small essays as a way of recuperating from these larger exertions.

Some of the essays are acts of mourning or celebrations of triumphs. They are very much rooted in events of the 80s, and thus, they are also a window into times and places.

The essays range in content. Some are very personal. Some are very political. Some are simple, soulful, and sweet. Some seem like personal writing. Some of them are just journal entries, private thoughts made public.

Beware of that.

If you didn't pick up this book to read someone's very personal thoughts and feeling, you'll probably be left disappointed. If you're hoping for a "book" in the sense of a coherent sum of its various parts (in the same way songs make up an album), then I think you'll be disappointed.

If you're looking for deep, soulful, honest writing -- then I think you've found exactly what you need.

[chantel nouseforaname · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m starting to feel like if you ever wanted to know how Alice Walker felt about a particular thing/subject — there’s a poem or an essay for that and I want to read them all.

Her words always make me feel like I’m flying. If I ever want to be situated in her world, she always provides the easiest in. She wants us to know. She wants us to see and understand. History, but not just American, history across the diaspora and more — and she explores it in various places: Jamaica, China, etc. We are so lucky to go with her. To experience life through her essays which are eyes into the world. Her essays are almost photographic in their ability to capture a time. It’s so educational.

I’m changing my rating on this because I realize as I type that it would be remiss to give this anything less than 5 stars.

Some of my favourite essays in this collection include: Father. Father is a meditation on the relationship that she had with her father and it is so insightful considering things that are going on now Re: abortion rights and women’s ability to be autonomous and self-directed throughout their own lives. It also speaks directly to the lives of our Black male elders and ancestors, their trials, tribulations and more. Written in 1984 it feels current and relatable.

Another essay that got me was Trying to See My Sister. I learned about Dessie Woods and situated myself more broadly in the discussion around disappeared, missing and murdered Black women and children around the US (and Canada) — which hit deeper as two realities developed alongside it as I was reading: the first about a young Black girl found in Toronto, and another an episode of Atlanta FX I watched detailing the horrible and true circumstances of children dying at the hands of two terrorists posing as foster moms. So much going on and everything is linked together, the past and the present.

Lastly, Alice Walker takes us through national/global and personal history, she intersperses these essays with thoughts on her immediate family, the fact that she learned that her daughter smokes, and her struggles to live a vegan life and more. The book will feed you if you let it. There’s so much to chew on and so much to learn from the pen of one of my favourite writers. The insights shared, the realities, how she brings you into her world/mind/life, makes me hope to one day read every single thing that she has written.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved loved loved this book.

Of course there were a couple of essays that didn't do it for me, but the great thing about anthologies is you can skip something if you don't like it after a page or five.

"We grow, including the intellectual and the spiritual, without being deeply aware of it. In fact, some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is what is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us, unless we stumbled on a book or person who explained it to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. Whenever we grow, we tend to feel it, as a young seed must feel the weight and inertia of the earth as it seeks to break out of its shell on its way to becoming a plant. Often the feeling is anything but pleasant. But what is most unpleasant is the not knowing what is happening. I remember the waves of anxiety that used to engulf me at different periods in my life, always manifesting itself in physical disorders (sleeplessness, for instance) and how frightened I was because I did not understand how this was possible.

With age and experience, you will be happy to know, growth becomes a conscious, recognized process. Those long periods when something inside ourselves seems to be waiting, holding its breath, unsure about what the next step should be, eventually become the periods we wait for, for it is in those periods that we realize we are being prepared for the next phase of our life and, in all probability, a new level of the personality is about to be revealed."

[Kathleen Fowler · Rating 4 out of 5]

As it happens, I have never read any of Walker’s fiction. This collection of essays is my introduction to her writing, and I have come away with a very high opinion of Walker and her art. She comes across as a thoughtful, level-headed and astute observer of society and human nature.

As a Black woman raised in the South in the mid-twentieth century, Walker has seen it all. She has personally experienced racism and sexism, and has ample reason to be bitter, resentful, distrustful, and cynical. And yet she is not. She hates injustice, but not just the sort that has affected her personally. She is the champion of every underdog. In fact, my favorite piece in this collection, Am I Blue?, is a meditation on the life of a horse whose pasture bordered Walker’s property. This brief essay is a moving account of how she came to extend her circle of concern to include non-human animals.

[Ameenah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This. This book is the answer. "Teach yourself peace. Pass it on."

[butterflygloss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cut off a star because of the horrible essay "Am I Blue?" because it was comparing eating animals to slavery and rape. You cannot just compare things to that!!!!!! I'm a vegan and I still think that Alice Walker's comparisons to eating animals to slavery was totally uncalled for and messed up. Other than that the book was really good and she's an amazing writer. Flew through this one :)

[Syd Botz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once and a while, I read a book that reminds me of the forces outside myself, the power I have over myself but not other others, and the tender way that I want to live with beings of the world — humans, plants, animals, and processes like the rising and setting of the sun. This is one of those books. Alice Walker has come into my life once again, just like she did when I picked up The Color Purple last year, when I needed this message, for which I am grateful. I love this series of essays, journal entries, and speeches. They are a powerful reflection on change and growth over a decade of Walker's life and have helped me reframe my time now as one of growth and change rather than of anguish and lostness. Through her commentary on people's critical responses to The Color Purple, her daughter's smoking habits, her changing relationship to her hair as a Black woman, and her own slow journey to a plant-based diet, Walker teaches the first step towards justice in our world is choosing to live with intention and attention toward ourselves and our communities in the natural world — people and animals and plants and all. "Teach yourself peace. Pass it on." (193).

[sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very intimate encounter. Walker includes countless journal entries between some profound essays, felt healing somehow in a way that I can’t yet articulate??

Was smoking a ciggie when I started reading “my daughter smokes”, I felt a little nauseous and am wondering if that will be the end if this lol

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read December 2024

[Kris Schaefer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book- exactly what I needed to reconnect to the earth and all living things. Beautifully written and thought-provoking. Alice walker spoke words that felt like they came from my own mouth… thoughts that I have had, only she says it better than I can. Definitely worth reading even if you read it years ago. I recommend you read it again

[Ceallaigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

“For a long time…we grow, physically and spiritually…without being deeply aware of it. In fact, some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is what is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us… that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before.” — from “Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling On the Brain”

TITLE—Living By the Word
AUTHOR—Alice Walker
PUBLISHED—1988
PUBLISHER—Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers

GENRE—nonfiction essays & memoir
SETTING—united states & others in 1970s/1980s
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—Black parenthood, folklore & heritage, Indigenous worldviews & spiritualities, environmental issues, the personhood of animals, love & community, intersectional feminism, queerness & “homospirituality”

WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
BONUS ELEMENT/S—This was one of those perfect “right time, right place” books for me. 🥰
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“My indignation at this lack of faith in me, however, was the cosmic slap I needed to begin to see what was before my eyes and to begin to hear, in conversations with both women and men, the very obvious things that were or were not said. I began to be able to see and hear though the camouflage, and many new and interesting worlds emerged.” — from “All the Bearded Irises of Life: Confessions of a Homospiritual”

My Notes:
So happy I picked this up at my favorite used bookstore this fall. Fellow Aquarius, Alice Walker, writes honestly and thoughtfully about so many important subjects in this collection of various selections of her prosework written between 1973 and 1987.

Walker’s essay on her experience as a bisexual (though she does not use that term) woman, “All the Bearded Irises of Life: Confessions of a Homospiritual”, was probably my favorite and was enormously relatable and similar to my own thoughts and feelings on this part of my identity as well.

I also very much enjoyed the Native themes and philosophies that ran through most of the essays but particularly so in the essays “My Big Brother Bill”, and “Everything Is A Human Being”.

Additionally the essay “The Dummy in the Window: Joel Chandler Harris and the Invention of Uncle Remus” was the ultimate explanation as to why cultural appropriation is SO, so harmful and must be taken very seriously. Highly, highly recommend this essay.

I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy the memoir / essays genre, particularly those dealing with the themes mentioned above, and want to read something uplifting, real, and spiritual.

“I look up straight into the eye of a giant red hibiscus flower Ketut just placed—with a pat on my head—by the bed. It says: Just be, Alice. Being is sufficient. Being is All. The cheerful, sunny self you are missing will return, as it always does, but only being will bring it back.” — from “Journal: Ubud, Bali—February 12, 1987”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

CW // graphic racist violence, police violence & brutality, animal abuse & death (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Further Reading—
- THE SOURCE OF SELF-REGARD, by Toni Morrison
- BRAIDING SWEETGRASS, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- DEAR SENTHURAN, by Akwaeke Emezi
- SISTER OUTSIDER, by Audre Lorde
- Angela Davis
- Zora Neale Hurston
- James Baldwin
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Malcolm X
- ASSATA AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, by Assata Shakur—TBR
- Ding Ling—TBR
- Yu Loujing—TBR
- Ibram X. Kendi

Favorite Quotes—
(There are a billion. 🤣)

Preface.
“For years I’d longed to be alone in the middle of fields and forests, silent, without need of words. Knowing how ecstatic I can be simply lying on a hillside in the sun, I realized I will probably be happiest—anticipating all of my possible incarnations—as a blade of grass.”

“I started to wonder if the old planet onto which I had been born, and on which I had toddled so delightedly as a baby, and explored so appreciatively as a child—the planet of enormous trees and mellow suns; the planet of weeklong days—still existed. If it did exist, then I wanted to be reconnected with it more than I wanted anything else in life. I wanted to tell it how much I loved it, before it was too late.”

“I set out on a journey to find my old planet: to gaze at its moon, to swim in its waters, to eat its fruits, to rediscover and admire its creatures; to purify myself in its wind and its sun.”

“…I spent many hours and days considering how it must be possible to exist, for the good of all, in which I believe is a new age of heightened global consciousness. For in my travels I found many people sitting still and thinking thoughts similar to my own.”

“I thank creation for the optimism of my spirit.”

Journal: April 17, 1984.
“Rootworkers, healers, wise people with “second sight” are called “two-headed” people. This two-headed woman was amazing. I asked whether the world would survive, and she said, No; and her expression seemed to say, The way it is going there’s no need for it to. When I asked her what I/we could/should do, she took up her walking stick and walked expressively and purposefully across the room. Dipping a bit from side to side. She said: Live by the Word and keep walking.”

Am I Blue?
“People like me who have forgotten, and daily forget, all that animals try to tell us. ‘Everything you do to us will happen to you; we are your teachers, as you are ours. We are one lesson.’”

The Dummy in the Window: Joel Chandler Harris and the Invention of Uncle Remus.
“I believe that the worst part of being in an oppressed culture is that the oppressive culture—primarily because it controls the production and dispersal of images in the media—can so easily make us feel ashamed of ourselves, of our sayings, our doings, and our ways. And it doesn’t matter whether these sayings, doings, or ways are good or bad. What is bad about them and, therefore, worthy of shame, is that they belong to us.”

“…folklore is at the heart of self-expression and therefore at the heart of self-acceptance.”

“…he stole a good part of my heritage. How did he steal it? By making me feel ashamed of it.”

Longing to Die of Old Age.
“The flavor of food is one of the clearest messages the Universe ever sends to human beings; and we have by now eaten poisoned warnings by the ton.”

The Old Artist: Notes on Mr. Sweet.
“If in my poverty I had no other freedom—not even to say good-bye to him in death—I still had the freedom to love him and the means to express it, if only to myself.”

My Big Brother Bill.
“Indians do not live in history books; every one encountered there is dead.”

“Of what devastation, to the environment and to other human beings, we are now witnessing did their incredulous expressions forewarn!”

“I was only a pair of eyes, a body, a flagging though faithful heart.”

“…his face had the haggard pallor of one whose fate has for generations rested in the hands of his enemies.”

Journal: August 30, 1984.
“And the sun is peeking through the clouds after a rainy morning. The fire takes this same opportunity to blaze. Deer keep wandering across the yard. I went out and spoke to a couple of them. I can tell my voice doesn’t frighten them. They are very hungry for green things, since all is dry and dead this time of year. Perhaps I’ll pick the greens in the garden and give them those.”

“But even though it seems like a very unproductive year, this is not true. I’ve managed to rest a lot, my first priority.”

Journal: August 31, 1984.
“I know the manifestation of magic is work.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that I am blessed. That you are present in the cosmos and in me and that we are breathing together—conspiracy. I see now what is meant by faith and the giving up of the self to the spirit. I thank you for your gifts. All of them. I see you are trying to teach me all the time. I think of this when the lessons hurt. I love you.”

Coming In From the Cold: Welcoming the Old, Funny-talking Ancient One’s Into the Warm Room of Present Consciousness, or, Natty Dread Rides Again!
“I felt I had written [The Color Purple] as a gift to the people. All of them. If they wanted it, let them fight to keep it, as I had had to fight to deliver it.”

“For it is language more than anything else that reveals and validates one’s existence, and if the language we actually speak is denied us, then it is inevitable that the form we are permitted to assume historically will be one of caricature, reflecting someone else’s literary or social fantasy.”

”For when we hold up a light in order to see anything outside ourselves more clearly, we illuminate ourselves.”

“That it is not by suppressing our own language that we counter other people’s racist stereotypes of us, but by having the conviction that if we present the words in the context that is or was natural to them, we do not perpetuate those stereotypes, but, rather, expose them. And, more important, we help the ancestors in ourselves and others continue to exist.”

“…we are who we are largely because of who we have been.”

“…when you love people their warts take on a strange beauty of their own.”

“Since I am not white and not a man and not really Western and not a psychiatrist, I get to keep these dreams for what they mean to me…”

Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling on the Brain.
“For a long time…we grow, physically and spiritually…without being deeply aware of it. In fact, some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don’t even recognize that growth is what is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to us… that we were in fact in the process of change, of actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before.”

Dear Joanna.
“Inner beauty, an irrepressible music, certainly courage to say No or Yes, dedication to one’s own Gods, affection for one’s own spirit(s), a simplicity of approach to life, will survive all of us, through your will.”

In the Closet of the Soul.
“It is nearly crushing to realize there was an assumption on anyone’s part that black women would not fight injustice except when the foe was white.”

“Since ‘white people’ are to a large extent responsible for so much of our worst behavior, which is really their behavior copied slavishly, it is an insult to black people’s experience in America to make a pretense of caring what they think.”

A Name is Sometimes an Ancestor Saying Hi, I’m With You.
“One way of looking at history (whether oral or written) is as a method that records characteristics and vibrations of our helpers, whose spirits we may feel but of whose objective reality as people who once lived we may not know.”

“This feeling of being loved and supported by the Universe in general and by certain recognizable spirits in particular is bliss. No other state is remotely like it. And perhaps that is what Jesus tried so hard to teach: that the transformation required of us is not simply to be “like” Christ, but to be Christ.”

A Thousand Words: A Writer’s Pictures of China.
“Whenever I fly, I fear I will not return to Earth except in shreds. As the plane lifts off I look at the Earth with longing and send waves of love to cover it as I rise. How could anyone be foolish enough to leave the ground? But… I must fly to see even more of the Earth I love.”

On Seeing Red.
“For we know none of us can really feel good about our country or ourselves if we don’t know who we are, where we’ve been or why, where we are going—and are afraid to guess. Or, to quote Doris Lessing, ‘If we were able to describe [or see] ourselves accurately, we might be able to change.’”

“And when I study all the movements for justice that spring up and are battered, maligned, and sometimes destroyed by corrupt leaders and bad-faith followers, I will see the passion, devotion, disillusionment, and, finally, transcendence that mark the people in [the film, ‘On Seeing Red’]—who seem to have been made more whole by their struggles, rather than less.”

Journal: Ubud, Bali—February 12, 1987.
“She walks in the rain as if it is sun.”

“I look up straight into the eye of a giant red hibiscus flower Ketut just placed—with a pat on my head—by the bed. It says: Just be, Alice. Being is sufficient. Being is All. The cheerful, sunny self you are missing will return, as it always does, but only being will bring it back.”

Not Only Will Your Teachers Appear, They Will Cook New Foods For You.
“Freedom, after all, is like love: the more you give to others, the more you have.”

Everything Is A Human Being.
“Deep in the psyche of most of us there is this fear—and long ago, I do not doubt, in the psyche of ancient peoples, there was a similar fear of trees. And of course a fear of other human beings, for that is where all fear of natural things leads us: to fear of ourselves, fear of each other, and fear even of the spirit of the Universe, because out of fear we often greet its outrageousness with murder.”

“It has been proved that the land can exist without the country—and be better for it…”

“As the Earth is treated ‘like dirt’—its dignity demeaned by wanton dumplings of lethal materials all across its proud face and in its crystal seas—so are we all treated.”

“We must absolutely reject the way of the Wasichu that we are so disastrously traveling, the way that respects most (above nature, obviously above life itself, above even the spirit of the Universe) the ‘metal that makes men crazy.’”

“The Wasichu’s uniqueness is not his ability to ‘think’ and ‘invent’—from the evidence, almost everything does this in some fashion or other—it is his profound unnaturalness. His lack of harmony with other peoples and places, and with the very environment to which he owes his life.”

“As I finish writing this, I notice a large spider sleeping underneath my desk. It does not look like me. It is a different size. But that it loves life as I do, I have no doubt.”

“Nobody Was Supposed to Survive”: The MOVE Massacre.
“…what they were trying to kill had to be more than the human beings involved; it had to be a spirit, an idea.”

All the Bearded Irises of Life: Confessions of a Homospiritual.
“My indignation at this lack of faith in me, however, was the cosmic slap I needed to begin to see what was before my eyes and to begin to hear, in conversations with both women and men, the very obvious things that were or were not said. I began to be able to see and hear though the camouflage, and many new and interesting worlds emerged.”

Why Did the Balinese Chicken Cross the Road?
“It is not so much a question of whether the lion will one day lie down with the lamb, but whether human beings will ever be able to lie down with any creature or being at all.”

The Universe Responds: Or, How I Learned We Can Have Peace On Earth.
“Without plant life human beings could not breathe. Plants produce oxygen. Without free animal life I believe we will lose the spiritual equivalent of oxygen. ‘Magic’, intuition, sheer astonishment at the forms the Universe devises in which to express life—itself—will no longer be able to breathe in us.”

“The Universe responds. What you ask of it, it gives. The military-industrial complex and its leaders and scientists have shown more faith in this reality than have those of us who do not believe in war and who want peace. They have asked the Earth for all its deadlier substances. They have been confident in their faith in hatred and war. The Universe, ever responsive, the Earth, ever giving, has opened itself fully to their desires. Ironically, Black Elk and nuclear scientists can be viewed in much the same way: as men who prayed to the Universe for what they believed they needed and who received from it a sign reflective of their own hearts.”

“…everything, especially the physical world, is divine. War will stop when we no longer praise it, or give it any attention at all. Peace will come wherever it is sincerely invited. Love will overflow every sanctuary given it. Truth will grow where the fertilizer that nourishes it is also truth. Faith will be its own reward.”

“Knock and the door shall be opened. Ask and you shall receive. Whatsoever you do the least of these, you do also unto me—and to yourself. For we are one… Only if we have reason to fear what is in our own hearts need we fear for the planet.”

[Bridget · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

I read this essay book for a Contemplative Writing English course in college - by far my absolute favorite class I have ever taken at my school.

I had never before read anything by Alice Walker. Reading Living by the Word was a treat. Walker's words are beautiful and heartbreaking and powerful. I'm pretty sure I'll be thinking about these essays for quite some time.

My all time favorite essays would have to be: "Am I Blue?", "Coming in from the Cold", "A Name is Sometimes an Ancestor Saying Hi, I'm With You", "Everything is a Human Being", and "The Universe Responds: Or, How I Learned We Can Have Peace on Earth". There are so many fantastic quotes from these essays, especially the last two, that made me think about life differently, question why things are the way they are, or made me appreciate the little things more. I am so thankful this book was assigned for this course.

*favorite quotes to be added later*

[Nilsson Yazzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I started to wonder if the old planet into which I had been born, and on which I had toddled so delightedly as a baby, and explored so appreciatively as a child- the planet of enormous trees and mellow suns; the planet of weeklong days-- still existed. If it did exist, then I wanted to be reconnected with it more than I wanted anything else in life. I wanted to tell it how much I loved it, before it was too late." -Alice Walker

A collection of selected writings (1973-1087) about rediscovery and reflection. A book that touches on feminism, environmentalism, and social issues. With essays that ranged from deep and soulful to personal and political. These essays gave me a profound insight into Alice Walker, not just as a writer, but as a person. If you enjoy reading the deep thoughts of authors this book is for you.

[A.H. Haar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alice Walker is a powerful writer, and it feels futile to "review" anything she has written, because her words stand alone. But its helpful to reflect on the words of others. So here we go.

Living by the Word is a collection of essays and journal entries spanning the years from 1973-1987. They focus primarily on the issues and intersections of race, class, gender, and environmental justice, and are steep heavily in Walkers personal spiritual beliefs. They are in turns inspiring and thought provoking. These essays shed light on Walkers mental and spiritual process in the years leading up to and releasing The Temple of My Familiar. Having just finished that soaring piece of literature, it was this element that I found most intriguing.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many of these essays I would give 5 stars for, but I skimmed some other shorter selections or journal entries, losing focus at times. Overall though, Walker writers about herself and others with an insight and heart that make this collection on feminism, race, and the environment sing. I hope to use some of these essays in my classroom as I often ask students to explore the power of language and media.

[Syd · Rating 4 out of 5]

These is a collection of different essays, many of them focused on race. It is interspersed with some of Walker's journal entries, which I really like. I could go years just reading journals of writers I adore.

[Gretchen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compact book of essays powerfully written. Each essay is a quick read and inspiring. A good book to evaluate your place in the world.

[Marina Morais · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alice Walker is part of any literature academic curriculum. I myself have taken two different short story modules as an undergraduate and both of them had short stories written by her, in her poignant, political and sometimes brutal style. I was curious to read some of her non-fiction work, so I got this collection of essays and am really glad I did.

The preface and first entry are immediately inviting. Some of the passages will stay with me forever. As I didn't know much about Walker's history, this was a very... intimate way to get acquainted with her past, her ideas and her worldview. I could relate to most of her statements and reflections, especially the unfinished ones, the ones that still lacked an answer because the mind is just constantly reassessing everything it knows or wants to know. I also learned a lot about several larger and specific topics related to race that I was either unfamiliar with or hadn't come across in such a personal, emotional way.

The only problem for me was that the order of the essays felt a bit random, like when you put a playlist on shuffle mode, so sometimes the transitions were hard and I had to put it down for a while before coming back to it. It would have benefited from a different organisation, by theme or style.

Delightful, insightful reading. I, too, thank creation for the optimism of my spirit, Ms Walker.

[fake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collection of short essays on a broad range of topics: from haircut and Bob Marley to police brutality, race, lesbianism, being a human. Pure words of wisdom and I mean it. Alice is one of very few authors who can say words like "spiritual" and "love" without sounding stupid. She really means this and every word she says is "truth". It's shocking how well this book aged (it was written in 1980s).

My favourite two essays:
* "Everything is a human being" - the best and most touching piece I've read on plastic and climate change. "While the Earth is enslaved, none of us free. While it treated like dirt, so we are".
* "Nobody was supposed to survive" - a story of MOVE massacre. MOVE was a peaceful black liberation group in Philly. Their house was bombed by police. They were "black low-class hippies" and their dogs were barking too loud. "Dropping a bomb on an occupied row house was unconscionable." 11 people were killed, including five children. The only surviving adult MOVE member, Ramona Africa, was charged and convicted on charges of riot and conspiracy; she served seven years in prison. No one from the city government was criminally charged in the attack.

[Carmela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredible collection of essays full of meditations on nature and animals and of course: conversations on race, gender, and class. I particularly loved Alice’s reflections on Native American myths and (harsh) truths about their history in our country. There is nothing fatalistic about Walker’s writing— even as she discusses nuclear weapons and peace. There are essays of deep reverence for all living things, including snakes, bugs, and Earth’s oxygen supply itself coupled with the retelling of her family tree and her own life as a Black woman perceived in America and globally. This collection highlights Alice’s propensity to search for hope, beauty, peace and magic we can find through — or maybe perpetually and permanently — wrapped up together along with our very flawed collective and individual humanity.

[Nancy · Rating 1 out of 5]

JUNE

by Alice Walker

Finish date: 11 June 2022
Genre: essays
Rating: F

I'm sure Alice Walker's fiction is much better than this book
of essays/journal entries.
It was a dull book which even drink can't enliven much.
#SoDisappointed

[Veronica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ms. Walker is a phenomenal writer and orator. I love all of her work as she is unapologetically Black and when telling our experiences. If you want to LEARN, grow as a writer and thinker you should definitely buy this collection of essays as well as her books. It's a great investment.

[Denira Varma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spectacular! A warm, beautifully written, unflinching honest and lyrical at times collection. This collection felt like something very few authors are able to achieve, simultaneously providing a glimpse into your own thoughts and the authors

[dmitri · Rating 5 out of 5]

best.

[Larissa Gomes Xavier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ótimos ensaios! Alice nos traz reflexões sobre vários assuntos diversos e de forma fluida no livro.

[Halima Cooper-Stubbs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book. I recommend to all women .

[Astrid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many gems in the book to be read slowly. A reminder in the stormy times in why you have to keep writing and living life truthfully.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In fact, some periods of our growth are so confusing that we don't even recognize that growth is what is happening. We may feel hostile or angry or weepy and hysterical, or we may feel depressed. It would never occur to use, unless we stumbled upon a book or person who explained it to us, that we were in fact in the process of change, or actually becoming larger, spiritually, than we were before. " (From "Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling on the Brain," p 70).
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"...'judness.' A time of spiritual inertia, of feeling thick, heavy, devoid of light. Yet a good time, too, because, well, judness, too, is a part of life; and it is life itself that is good and holy. Not just the 'dancing' times. Nor even the light." (from "Journal," p 132).

[Bookreaderljh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of essays which also create a time line of the authors life. Walter's commitment to peace and equality for women and African Americans is obvious and her essays on various issues is a study of the times this book was written (the eighties). None of the essays really stood out for me but her descriptions and observations were interesting throughout. It brought back a lot of memories of the concerns of those days.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's sustenance to be found in Alice Walker's lovely collection of essays and journal entries. Hers is a world in which "everything is a human being" and that includes the animals and the trees. Really "Living by the Word" is message of hope for a better world, a world that's only possible if we envision it and take daily actions to bring it about. Some of the gestures will be big, some will be small, all are necessary.