Thresh & Hold

by Marlanda Dekine

Winner of the 2021 New Southern Voices Poetry Prize

"I cannot and will not put Marlanda Dekine’s, Thresh & Hold down. The world it builds, celebrates, and reclaims is a reckoning and a symphony. From the brutality of the rice plantations of South Carolina to the specific privacy found inside one’s Saturn Vue, the breadth of human experience that unfold in these poems cover histories that, we too often forget, are all intimate stories. Dekine reminds us that every moment we read about is a moment some body has fought or celebrated or been unable to live through. The effect of this is that we are brought into the vast music of a world that is endlessly unfolding, It’s fairly common to read poems that speak about community but there are only a handful of poets alive; Nikky Finney, Destiny Hemphill, CA Conrad come to mind, whose poems truly make community as the work blooms before us. This is a poet of that order and ability. I am so blown away by the gift and the challenge of this book. A book that not for one moment looks away from the brutality and beauty of this world. A book that says, 'I am listening to Spirit. I am not dying today.'" —Gabrielle Calvocoressi, contest judge, author of The Rocket Fantastic

Genres: Poetry, LGBT, Queer

72 pages, Paperback

First published March 29, 2022

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this because it won the 2021 New Southern Voices Poetry Prize from Hub City - as local of a local press as I can get!

The poems are about the poet's multi-generational background and rural childhood, full of Gullah-Geechee culture as a living vibrant element the poet also participates in while also queering that experience, all serving to look at these details with fresh eyes. The poems about parents and grandparents are particularly memorable, as is "Hurricane Family."

So then I'm reading the acknowledgments like I always do and the poet thanks several people I know - a music major who is now an opera singer in France, a former academic dean, and a former chaplain. I did a little research to discover they were a student at the university where I work, with just a few years overlap. Perhaps we met.

[Kyra Leseberg (Roots & Reads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to follow

[Elizabeth Raines · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is a great reclamation of family, history, and self. You can definitely tell that the author found their sense of self and was coming to terms with their history and Gullah-Geechee culture. This book really delves into that culture and the history of the land that their ancestors were part of. This collection truly hits the nail on the head regarding what life is like for these people in coastal South Carolina. It’s a wonderful collection by a local author from a local publishing house, and I would definitely recommend that you check it out.

[Sonja · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read is Thresh & Hold by Marlanda Dekine. Queer and Gullah-Geechee, they lead us through their journey of discovery and pain and blossoming. Reading the book as a whole was a wonder-ful experience. I recommend it. I couldn’t stop reading it. I feel very much like the reviewer Gabrielle Calvocoressi felt.
Are we making community? I hope so. I do think the ancestors speak to us and I do think it is so important to imagine them if we don’t know them. Thank you Marlanda for this book.

Here is an excerpt:

You will find me in every Gullah-Geechee place,
holy haunting I watch.

I get to know who visits me
I want to be a good psychic.
I celebrate the gathering of
water

I love to​ breathe. ​the ​​
air​ they​
breathe
I watch Tre roll a blunt

We also learn about the culture’s lack of differentiation of male/female. E/em is the gender-neutral pronoun:
I

E was reading
Cesaire, Fanon, and Ida B. wells
while sipping
a bit of my Grandma Thelma’s
muscadine wine dug up from the dirt.

Another very interesting treat was all their references at the end called Notes and Research with excellent books named.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems about identity, family, and heritage.

from A Rose: "He said her mouth was a cave opening. / Inside there was a choir of deacons, / dressed and ready for ritual, / a trilling crescendo of sweet songs, / nightingales who wanted / to be filled by forgiveness"

from My Black, Rural, Queer Childhood: "Maybe I've been afraid / to claim my body, afraid to be wild // and breakout into all t his sky around me // Perhaps I can burst // through ceilings and glass, explode with joy?"

from Ma: "She kicked me out of her house, / because I was an unforgiving mirror. // My ma loves me more than / she ever learned to love herself."

[Claire Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible and stunning poetry book centered in the context, history, and place of Dekine's South Carolina home. The relationships between family, her own body, her home's legacy of slavery, and gender identity are explored in depth through form and language. Would for sure recommend to anyone looking to read contemporary southern poetry.

"Perhaps I can burst/ through ceilings and glass,/ explode into joy?"
"I probably am catapulted/ by all things terrifying me./ I have a reason for being."
"Vigilant for so long,/ I am full./ There are centuries/ of terror crawling just beneath my skin."

[Maddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I forget how wonderful poetry can be. There is an art in saying as much as possible with as few words as possible. My favorite quotes:

"I want my body, but I don't
want it to be called a body"

"I was an unforgiving mirror"

"Flooding in now, I rest
so I can harvest new worlds,
A ready net so still"

"Exhausted of singing in an empire's hopeful choir"

And finally

"I only have my back,
And it is mine until I die"

[Burgi Zenhaeusern · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the magic in a poem like "Home Body", the rootedness and sense of place in poems such as "The Holy Place" and "Plantersville, South Caroline" for example, and the deep resonance of song and incantation in all. What a pleasure to read Thresh & Hold! I will be looking for more from this author with great anticipation.

[Ra Malika Imhotep · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book claims you as kin & welcomes you into the poet's fecund origins. This book is a pastpresentfuture psalm. Dekine has offered a careful holding of the memories that make and unmake a black queer self.

[isra · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 💫

[Paige · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poignant and powerful.
It spoke to me.