Soul Culture: Black Poets, Books, and Questions that Grew Me Up

by Remica Bingham-Risher

Examines firsthand the lives of legendary Black writers who made a way out of no way to illuminate a road map for budding creators desiring to follow in their footsteps

Acclaimed Cave Canem poet and essayist Remica Bingham-Risher interweaves personal essays and interviews she conducted over a decade with 10 distinguished Black poets, such as Lucille Clifton, Sonia Sanchez, and Patricia Smith, to explore the impact of identity, joy, love, and history on the artistic process. Each essay is thematically inspired, centered on one of her interviews, and uses quotes drawn from her talks to showcase their philosophies. Each essay also delves into how her own life and work are influenced by these elders. Essays included are these:

- "blk/wooomen revolution"
- "Girls Loving Beyonc� and Their Names"
- "The Terror of Being Destroyed"
- "Standing in the Shadows of Love"
- "Revision as Labyrinth"

Noting the frustrating tendency for Black artists to be pigeonholed into the confines of various frameworks and ideologies--Black studies, women's studies, LGBTQIA+ studies, and so on--Bingham-Risher reveals the multitudes contained within Black poets, both past and present. By capturing the radical love ethic of Blackness amid incessant fear, she has amassed not only a wealth of knowledge about contemporary Black poetry and poetry movements but also brings to life the historical record of Black poetry from the latter half of the 20th century to the early decades of the 21st.

Examining cultural traditions, myths, and music from the Four Tops to Beyonc�, Bingham-Risher reflects on the enduring gifts of art and community. If you've ever felt alone on your journey into the writing world, the words of these poets are for you.

Genres: Poetry, Memoir, Nonfiction, Essays, Biography Memoir

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

My interview with the author of Soul Culture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe_Hy...

In Soul Culture, Remica Bingham-Risher has written a beautiful book about Black community, mentorship, growth, and revision. The book is a collection of essays that are all touching, inspiring, and heartfelt. Bingham-Risher defines "Soul Culture" as the “nuanced living of Black Americans and…contemporary Black poets”.

In each essay, Bingham-Risher writes about a theme and centers one Black poet that mentored her at different times in her life. She interviewed 10 poets in total, who come from the era that bridges between the Black Arts movement and the Cave Canem era, that Bingham-Risher came of age in. Each poet that she spotlights serves as the connective tissue of each theme. For example, in her essay "On Faith", Honorée Fanonne Jeffers taught her "to remember those who came before". In "Who Raised You?", Erica Hunt teaches her that the best way to mentor younger poets is not to reproduce a Mini-Me of yourself but to "help them grow what's already taking root" inside them. In "Revision As Labyrinth", Tim Seibles teaches her of the importance of revision, which has a double meaning in the essay. She shows that revision is not just about how to make a poem better but how also to make the necessary changes in our individual lives.

This book is not just about the poets she talks to but it is also about their individual books as well. Soul Culture allows you to develop a reading list of these poets’ books, including her own works. One of the other cool aspects about this book is that the reader is able to see Bingham-Risher's evolution as a poet. You see the influences and impacts these poets and her life experiences had on her own work. I would highly recommend that you read her three books before you read Soul Culture (Conversion, What We Ask Of Flesh, and Starlight & Error), however if you don’t you will certainly be inspired to check them out when you finish this book.

One feeling you should experience after finishing Soul Culture is inspiration. Bingham-Risher will inspire you to read more Black poets, to honor those that came before, and to mentor those who are coming behind you. Ultimately, tending a community is what is important to her, she says “I was brought into this world by the patchwork of coincidence and plans, and I will leave this world tethered to as many lives that tether me”. What I learned from Bingham-Risher is that you are only able to leave this world tethered to others if you have tended the community which is what the Black poet community and the Black community in general, throughout history has always been about, this is the essence of Soul Culture.

[AJ Nolan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I set out to read this as a lunchtime treat, a way to give myself an incentive to actually take a break for lunch rather than working right through. That lasted less than 2 weeks and then the book, through no fault of its own, was lost in a sea of emails and grading and class prep. I brought it home with me this summer and knowing that I wanted to savor the book more than reading it in one or two sittings, I kept it on my table for breakfast reading, which expanded into some dinner reading as well. This book is such a gift of a braiding of a history and celebration of black poetry interwoven with a memoir of Remica’s life both as a poet and as a person, daughter, wife, friend, and mom. It is also a book of craft, delivering so much insight and wisdom about poetry. I’m so lucky to have Remica as a colleague; I am luckier still that she is a poet and a writer and a scholar putting this work into the world.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

In each chapter, SOUL CULTURE simultaneously examines moments in Bingham-Risher’s life and the work of a poet that was influential to her perspective. To write this book, she interviewed each of these poets, including some of my personal faves like Sonia Sanchez, Natasha Trethewey, Honorée Fannone Jeffers, and Patricia Smith. In a autotheorist style, Bingham-Risher explores her memory and the legacy she steps into with her work. She writes in the introduction, “ I am asking myself for my poems each day, what do we have to live up to?” (xiii)

The thread of community is strong in this book, from family/home, to working in education, to finding roots in writer’s spaces like Bingham-Risher did at Cave Canem. She imagines and claims “a home in Black poetry” (20) that stitches her as “part of the tapestry that is Black family” (34), the quilt of collective “I” every Black writer searching for themselves in literature holds close. And as Bingham-Risher describes Clifton’s collection QUILTING, there is an “intimate longing…a hold” (57) that she unpacks in her study of each writer —each piece of study working to make a place for herself/ ourselves.

One of my favorite chapters explores the influence of Lucille Clifton and how the legacy of her work demands we occupy and reveal vulnerable spaces of love. This includes the “present best-we-can-give love and how it has been shifted by the trauma in all our histories” (69). Bingham-Risher’s inclusion of her own poems is a part of the love she imbues in this text, leaning into the vulnerable, the ways we seek love, the ways we honor each other. As a reader, I felt my capacity for love and reverence grow through Bingham-Risher’s creative practice and careful consideration of other’s work.

Carrying the spirit of Sonia Sanchez’s work, Bingham-Risher asks, “we of another generation —what is our revolution? What is revolutionary work in the age of a somewhat free or blackness? … is having faith in the revolution, and revolutionary art, a radical act?“ (92). As she explores those questions, I see SOUL CULTURE as an answer.

[Joshunda Sanders · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so grateful that I received a finished, signed copy of this beautiful book, and my only regret is that I wasn't able to get to it and really sit with it until long after publication, which was last year. It is a soulful, beautiful look at Mrs. Bingham-Risher's poetic journey, her elders; a tribute to the pioneering collective that has shaped contemporary Black poetry, Cave Canem. It explores the power of community for shaping tradition, the importance of the wisdom and perspectives offered by the likes of E. Ethelbert Miller, Honoree Fannone Jeffers, Patricia Smith, Erica Hunt and Natasha Tretheway alongside Forrest Hamer and Tim Seibles and Lucille Clifton. Rarely do I immediately want to read a book again for the first time, but I intend to return to this beauty over and over again. It is filled with honest, heartwarming sentences that grew up the author, but also grows up the reader.

[Terzah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This mix of memoir, literary analysis, and cultural commentary introduced me to several poets I hadn't known before, including the author herself, and offered a lyrical window into the Black experience for those of us who are outside of it. A fellow Goodreads commentator recently told me he thinks that Black Americans are some of the best Americans because they've been forced by injustice to make all of us confront history and wrangle with our individual roles in what comes next--and demanded of us and themselves that what comes next will be better. The greatest among them have transformed and continue to transform that struggle into transcendent art.

Bingham-Risher is a worthy heir of that proud tradition. She is humble when appropriate but also self-confident. Her writing is often gorgeous: "The fact that we continue on--sometimes succeeding, sometimes enabled by spirit or might or time or unforeseen occurrence, to surmount the impossible--is what makes us fascinating." And though she has some harrowing experiences to relate and much sadness in her past, the final feeling I was left with was hope. She writes, "...what every person doesn't hope someone, anyone--when they've tried to color in their hopes and difficulties--will say, "Tell me everything," then, "I think you did it right." I know I'm not in her target audience, but I definitely do think that in this book she did it right. I'm looking forward to moving on to her full poetry collections.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poet's biography, focusing on the author's life, growth and development as a writer with a background chorus of Black poet voices encouraging and advising her-- an ostensibly us. The interviews, conducted by the author over a number of years, are sampled with quotes scattered through these engaging personal essays. But mostly this is a series of essays about the author, and will trigger a (worthy!) book buying spree to engage and fully understand the poets and poems quoted and referred to within. A great introduction to poetry and essential for students interested in the craft.

[Rhonda Hankins]

This is a many-layered book with more to offer than one read allows.

The framework of Soul Culture is the author's interviews with ten poets so learning about these poets and their inspirations is certainly an interesting part of the book. But that's just a small part really. The author weaves in her own poetry/experiences/challenges and it all makes for a very dense, rich reading experience.

For me this book was particularly remarkable because it drew me in even though I am close to illiterate with re to poetry.

[Lisa Hagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

As soon as I saw this book on amazon, I could not wait to get my copy. The author takes you on a journey of powerful poetry, this history of poets and works that lifted and inspired me. If you want to feel deeply so that your whole body becomes involved in reading, read Soul Culture. Her passion comes through every page. I highly recommend getting a copy for yourself and for friends.

Beacon did a gorgeous job on the cover and interior.

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book.
I love poetry
I love individual perspectives that are different from my own, but I found repeatedly that so much of this was a different experience but a similar love of words, culture, community and the things that make us who we are.
Highly recommended.

[adriana · Rating 4 out of 5]

a love letter to black writers. beautifully written, equal parts insightful and poetic

[myel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, I think, is important