Magnified

by Minnie Bruce Pratt

Once in a blue moon, a love like this comes along

This collection of love poems draws us into the sacred liminal space that surrounds death. With her beloved gravely ill, poet and activist Minnie Bruce Pratt turns to daily walks and writing to find a way to go on in a world where injustice brings so much loss and death. Each poem is a pocket lens "to swivel out and magnify" the beauty in "the little glints, insignificant" that catch her eye: "The first flowers, smaller than this s." She also chronicles the quiet rooms of "pain and the body's memory," bringing the reader carefully into moments that will be familiar to anyone who has suffered similar loss. Even as she asks, "What's the use of poetry? Not one word comes back to talk me out of pain," the book delivers a vision of love that is boldly political and laced with a tumultuous hope that promises: "Revolution is bigger than both of us, revolution is a science that infers the future presence of us." This lucid poetry is a testimony to the radical act of being present and offers this balm: that the generative power of love continues after death.

Oh Death

Someone sang, Oh death! Oh death! Won't you
pass me over for another day? Someone said, I

dreamed of you last night. I dreamed you
were telling me your whole life story.

Whole. Whorled. Welkin, winkle, wrinkle.
The loop of time holds us all together.

The pile of laundry on the bed. You
folding socks one inside the other. We
have had this day, and now this night.

The clothes are put away, and from the bed we see
the moon folding light into darkness, not death.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, Lesbian, LGBT, Grief, Nonfiction

88 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2021

About the author

Minnie Bruce Pratt (b. September 12, 1946 in Selma, Alabama) is an U.S. educator, activist, and award-winning poet, essayist, and theorist. Pratt was born in Selma, Alabama, grew up in Centreville, Alabama and graduated with an honors B.A. from the University of Alabama (1968) and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of North Carolina (1979). She is a Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University where she was invited to help develop the university’s first Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Study Program. She emerged out of the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s and 1980s and has written extensively about race, class, gender and sexual theory. Pratt, along with lesbian writers Chrystos and Audre Lorde, received a Lillian Hellman-Dashiell Hammett award from the Fund for Free Expression to writers "who have been victimized by political persecution." Pratt, Chrystos and Lorde were chosen because their experience as "a target of right-wing and fundamentalist forces during the recent attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts."[1] Her political affiliations include the International Action Center, the National Women's Fightback Network, and the National Writers Union. She is a contributing editor to Workers World newspaper. Pratt's partner is author and activist Leslie Feinberg.
[from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie_B...]

Reviews

[hanita · Rating 5 out of 5]

thank you to my beloved for gifting me this, i love you. butchfemme love is a revolution

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have enjoyed Pratt's writing in the past, and I was excited to read her poetry, but I found myself feeling rather nonplussed.  These poems just sort of sat on the page in front of me and didn't do anything.   My reaction was mostly limited to: "yep, that's a poem." A few of these did stand up and get my attention. These were all written while her life partner, Leslie Feinberg, was dying.  This poem hits hard:

In the End
What is left to say? In the end, you died.
And with your last mouthful of breath
you carried away the person you had been,
you took away the person I was with you.

At the end, you said, This time I know I
Am going, and you are staying.  But someone
Unknown to me was the one who survived,
Saying, if only, if only we were still alive.

[Devin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cried, cried, and cried some more.

Even before you begin this book, the cover is overwhelming. There is symbolism there, Minnie-Bruce later reveals in one of the poems. And then you find out that, in this book of poetry written about Minnie-Bruce's life with Leslie Feinberg, including losing Leslie in 2014, that it was Leslie who took this incredible photo that is the entire cover, and the symbolism makes so much more sense. Leslie was dying and she and Minnie-Bruce knew it. It was not a matter of if, but when.

Minnie-Bruce captures in just one poem: love, loss, grief, Marxism, all against a framework of imagery that flows between a river in Alabama and another snowfall in New York.

Just incredible.

[Mary Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite poems: “Hand, Handle, Latch”, “The Spin, The Dip”, “Now We Are Rushing”, “The Peacock Fan”, “Last Word.”

[Laura Tobio Lamoso · Rating 5 out of 5]

fuffff, que preciosidade dios

[Lenora Good · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the opportunity to attend an electronic reading of Minnie Bruce Pratt where she read some of the poems from this book. I knew what I was getting when I ordered it. These are poems she wrote as the love of her life was dying.

I knew they would be beautiful, and I knew they would be sad, but I was totally unprepared for the depth of emotion they brought forth. I laughed, I cried, and at times a deep primal scream of heartfelt pain escaped from my lips.

As an aside, Ms. Pratt is lesbian, as was her true love. I mention it because she did both at the reading and in the book. This is not, in my opinion a “queer lit” book. It is about a woman deeply in love, who cared for, nursed, held, loved another being until the very end. It is a book of loss. Anyone who is truly alive, anyone who has ever lost a lover or a friend, will be blessed by reading this book and know they have never truly been alone.

[Camille Dungy]

Observing the world as if through a lens that reveals the closeness of things and also their true contours, Minnie Bruce Pratt describes a neighborhood, its elms and arborvitae, the rain, the snow, the imminent death of a beloved, hedges, and edges, and bitter herbs. Perhaps, through these observations, grief becomes bearable. Or, perhaps, individual grief is amplified by its echoes. One poem in Magnified says, “I am writing the natural history of my world.” Another laments the knowledge that there must always be, for us all, a final word. These taut lyrics measure mourning and memory, embodiment, and embodiment’s inevitable, eventual end.

Review published originally with Orion Magazine: https://orionmagazine.org/2022/03/17-...

[anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Wind drags the voices of the dead, howling,
over the metal window ledge, the harmonica
of what’s left unsaid. What’s the use of poetry?
Not one word comes back to talk me out of pain.”
(“The Ledge”)

4.5/5 avec 0.5 en moins pour m'avoir rendu aussi triste. première fois de ma vie que je lis de la poésie avec un réel récit au travers des pages et d'avoir cette sensation de devoir lire frénétiquement pour juste savoir ce qu'il se passe ensuite. trop trop triste envie de #mourir. je n'ai vraiment pas d'autre choix que de lire stone butch blues maintenant...

[Madi Sipes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not know Minnie Bruce Pratt was the partner of Leslie Feinberg (author of “Stone Butch Blues”) until reading this collection. I think reading the collection under that lens — knowing this woman watched her partner slip away slowly to disease — made it sting more.

The author balances nature imagery and metaphors with blunt honesty about the impact of her grief. There is a romance in her attention to detail — she describes simple things in a way that makes them feel important.

[K.C. Norton]

How am I supposed to rate a book like this one? A chronicle of a loved one’s passing? So I won’t, but this was lovely and soft and heartbreaking. I don’t remember what compelled me to pick this up, because I didn’t realize that the author was Leslie Feinberg’s partner. Seems like a sign to read more from both of these writers.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

”Not yet. Not you.”

This was the most poignant and delicate exploration of grief. I cried, my chest felt heavy, but there is so much hope and humanity in these words too.

I know what a love like theirs feels like, and this felt like a real punch in the gut. But so beautiful.

[Claudia Reder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Minnie Bruce also reads so beautifully. Her voice is rhythmic and natural and her voice is full of the emotion in the poems.

[Lea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful collection of poetry steeped in grief. Themes used to express the grief and loss of her partner - rain, snow, rebirth of spring and new leaves, nature as a backdrop to emotions.

[Rolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy hell what a heartbreaking, devastatingly lovely collection of love/grief poems.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

rest in peace Leslie Feinberg <3 beautiful poetry so so so touching

[jac · Rating 5 out of 5]

hauntingly beautiful

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely, anguished poetry as Minnie Bruce Pratt stays with her dying partner til the end.

[Robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gift of a book. Long live Minnie Bruce and Leslie.

[Thea Pettitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary, masterful. Everything I want from a book of poetry.

[Kitty]

the grief and the love is beautiful. thank you. for everything.

[Gabrielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

just read this on a whim and cried so hard. i hope they are together again

[Kat Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favourites were The Last Contract and Do Not Seek to Remain.

[Emma Durand · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very atmospheric writings on grief & love

[Caroline S · Rating 5 out of 5]

True lesbian icon