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Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful
Alice Walker has always turned to poetry to express some of her most personal and deeply felt concerns. She has said that her poems-even the happy ones-emerge from an accumulation of sadness, when she stands again “in the sunlight.” “[This collection] has two fine strengths-a music that comes along sometimes, as sad and cheery as a lonely woman’s whistling-and Miss Walker’s own tragicomic gifts” (New York Times Book Review).
80 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1985
21 people are currently reading
632 people want to read
About the author
Alice Walker
243 books7,236 followersNoted 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.
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.
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April 11, 2024
Most readers know of Alice Walker. She is a writer who is celebrated worldwide, having won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983 — the first African-American woman to do so — for “The Color Purple”. She has written many bestselling novels, short stories and essays and four children’s books, as well as ten volumes of poetry. Alice Walker has worked to address problems of injustice, inequality, and poverty as an activist, a teacher, and public intellectual.
Alice Walker’s first collection of poems, “Once”, in 1968, was precipitated by her pregnancy and abortion while she was at college. They are intensely personal and full of despair, describing her confusion, isolation, and thoughts of suicide. She viewed writing poetry as a kind of therapy as she worked through her problems. Her second collection in 1973, “Revolutionary Petunias”, deals with more public issues, particularly civil and women’s rights, from an individual’s point of view. In her third collection, six years later,“Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning”, she returned to personal thoughts of family and friendship, using her grandparents’ long, solid relationship as a focus.
Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful was her fourth volume of poetry, although it was the first to be published in Great Britain, in 1985. The poems date from between 1979 and 1984, several of them having previously been printed in various women’s and family magazines. The poems are all very accessible.
The title of this collection is from a verse by a Native American shaman “Lame Deer — Seeker of Vision” who, on considering the terrible problems brought by the white settlers, with their whiskey, found she could almost forgive them, because they also brought the beauty of horses to the North American Plains.
Alice Walker is sometimes described as strident and politicised, in both her speech and her writing. The significance in both this title and the dedication to two of her ancestors therefore, is that in these poems, Alice Walker tries to ameliorate her sharp antipathy, and looks for a saving grace in the most terrible circumstances, and even in the hearts of brutal oppressors. It sets the tone for the collection. She is mostly concerned with contemporary social issues. Some poems here addresses huge concerns, such as the need to save our earth from destruction by war and pollution, but in others her attention turns towards small intimate moments, and hidden subliminal thoughts. She describes exchanges between lovers and enemies.
In a way Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful blends the attitudes from her second and third collections, by maintaining a direct, personal voice in the poems, often focusing on an individual’s daily struggles to preserve dignity and liberty despite oppression, hardship and world problems. Alice Walker writes of ageing, of motherhood and childhood, expressing important topics such as regret, love, and courage. She praises the endurance of the human spirit which has endured slavery and humiliation, yet still flourishes and grows. She writes, too, about ordinary joys such as “My daughter is coming!” a lover’s warmth, and even about poetry itself:
“Letting go
in order to hold on
I gradually understand
how poems are made.”
Alice Walker writes in free verse, and uses direct language with simple images. Reading it is more like reading the conversation, or inner thoughts, of an articulate, observant woman. She rarely employs devices or conventions usual in poetry; there are no metaphors, and little use of rhyme or structured metre; an occasional line is repeated for emphasis maybe, but otherwise the lines are like her speech, but chopped up into various short lengths. The language is spare, with few embellishments or attempts at moving description. The common feature to all the poems is that they are didactic. Alice Walker herself say that she has always turned to poetry to express some of her most personal and deeply felt concerns. She maintains that her poems, even the happier ones, emerge from a growing accumulation of sadness, to stand again “in the sunlight”.
The first poem in this collection, “Remember” entreats us not to forget what the condition of black woman used to be:
“I am the girl
holding their babies
cooking their meals
sweeping their yards
washing their clothes
Dark and rotting
and wounded, wounded”
and stating her position now:
“I am the woman
with the blessed
dark skin
I am the woman
with teeth repaired
I am the woman
with the healing eye
the ear that hears.
I am the woman: Dark,
repaired, healed
Listening to you.
I would give
to the human race
only hope …
Justice and Hope
Let us begin”
The simplicity, short line lengths — only one word sometimes — and careful use of capital letters, is typical of her poetry. It is reminiscent of some of e.e. cummings’s work.
In the next poem, “These Mornings of Rain”, Alice Walker speaks gently, with soft eloquence, of love:
“These mornings
I do not need
my beloveds’ arms about me
until much later
in the day ...
to love and be loved
in absentia
is joy enough for me”
(The apostrophe is as it was printed.)
There is also a lamentation for lost love, entitled “Walker”. It is quite short, just one stanza:
“When I no longer have your heart
I will not request your body
your presence
or even your polite conversation.
I will go away to a far country
separated from you by the sea
—on which I cannot walk—
and refrain even from sending
letters
describing my pain.”
And here is another of just one stanza, later in the collection, “love is not concerned”:
“love is not concerned
with whom you pray
or where you slept
the night you ran away
from home
love is concerned
that the beating of your heart
should kill no one.”
Nevertheless some of these poems are desolate. She writes with outrage, of racism, injustice and hunger. Alice Walker’s poems span the whole range of human emotions. In the poem “A Few Sirens”, she expresses despair at the human condition:
“But in the world
children are lost;
whole countries of children
starved to death
before the age
of five
each year;
their mothers squatted
in the filth around
the empty cooking pot
wondering:”
It is sometimes disturbingly alienating, such as this, from “Each One Pull One”:
“We do not worship them.
We do not worship their movies.
We do not worship their songs.
We do not think their newscasts
cast the news.
We do not admire their president.
We know why the White House is white.
We do not find their children irresistible;
We do not agree they should inherit the earth.”
Apparently once Alice Walker’s daughter asked her if she was prejudiced. She then realised that perhaps she had spoken out once too often against white males.
“These days I think of Rebecca.
‘Mama, are you a racist?’ she asks
And I realise I have badmouthed white people
once too often
in her presence“
I too have this slight worry. I do not feel that deliberately separating races, black versus white, and demonising males, so as to encourage antagonism between the genders, can be good. I understand the temptation, the resentment, the savage indictment that injustice still reigns in society: the fate of poor black people, who toil so that white men may savour the jewels that adorn heads of state. And yet, these thoughts are perhaps better expressed in her essays, or revealed in her novels.
The other aspect I find surprising is the poetry’s simplicity; its use of simple form and diction. Critics have praised this as reminiscent of African-American folk parables. One said: “this quality “permit[s] her to reveal homespun truths of human behavior and emotion.” Other have pronounced it “mundane”. Clearly the boundaries between prose and poetry are hardly recognised in her work. Her verse, like her prose, is often rhythmic; but if she rhymes or alliterates, it seems to be almost accidental.
There is a song-like quality in some. This poem is actually called “Song”:
“The world is full of colored
people
People of Color
Tra-la-la
The world is full of
colored people
Tra-la-la-la-la“
This continues for five more verses, with various repetitions. I can recognise the joy, the celebratory aspect, but it does not speak to me.
Here are the final words in the collection:
“Surely the earth can be saved
by all the people
who insist
on love.
Surely the earth can be saved for us.”
I can see where Alice Walker’s preoccupations come from. She was born in Georgia, where her father was a sharecropper. When she was eight years old, she was shot by her brother with an air gun, which fired metal balls. This left her scarred and blind in one eye. Perhaps her anti-male attitude is rooted in this tragic accident, since she felt her father also let her down, by his inability to obtain proper medical treatment for her. The disfigurement made Alice Walker shy and self-conscious, and this led her to writing to try to express herself. Throughout her life, she has respected her mother’s strength and dignity despite their poverty. She remembers her mother’s perseverance, working in the garden to create beauty, even in such unlikely, disadvantaged conditions.
It is perhaps not surprising that Alice Walker’s poetry celebrates womankind, and the solidarity of black people. She revels in a bond of sisterhood with women throughout the world, and a joyous celebration of the female principle touching on mysticism, in its expression of the divine. She has a reverence for the earth, and a sense of unity with all living creatures. Alice Walker’s poetry is highly personal and generally didactic, usually coming from traumatic or other events in her own life. Other poems are related to causes she advocates and feels strongly about, and injustices over which she agonises. With Alice Walker it is always the message that counts. I kept thinking, as I read these however, how much I prefer Maya Angelou’s poetry. Some is deceptively simple and direct, others lush and lyrical, yet others nuanced, complex and full of hidden meanings waiting to be teased out.
The “New York Times Book Review” said: “[This collection] has two fine strengths: a music that comes along sometimes, as sad and cheery as a lonely woman’s whistling, and Miss Walker’s own tragicomic gifts”
Many of my friends have rated it five stars, but I cannot say I agree. I share Alice Walker’s views for the most part, but her poetry is not to my taste. It is too simple. I prefer poems which move me by the quality of their language and their imagery. I like complexity, and to look beneath, for another meaning. I like variation of pattern, of style and metre. Just because I agree with what she says, does not mean that I wish to have my views parroted back to me in pseudo-poetic form. It is not … enough. With written works, I try to rate what I read, rather than the views behind the expression.
However, I am keeping this at my default of three stars, because I think it will appeal to those who do not regularly read poetry, and may tempt others who say they do not like poetry, because they think it is “too difficult”. This type of poetry is universally appealing.
It does not feel like reading poetry. That is both its fault and its virtue.
*****
Here is a complete list of all 41 poems in this volume, in alphabetical order:
1971
Attentiveness
The Diamonds On Liz’s Bosom
Each One, Pull One
Every Morning
Family Of
A Few Sirens
First, They Said *
Gray
How Poems Are Made: A Discredited View
I Said To Poetry
I’m Really Very Fond
If Those People Like You
Killers
Listen
Love Is Not Concerned
Mississippi Winter (1)
Mississippi Winter (2)
Mississippi Winter (3)
Mississippi Winter (4)
My Daughter Is Coming
No One Can Watch The Wasichu
On Sight
Overnights
Poem At Thirty-nine
Remember
Representing The Universe
S M
She Said
Song
Songless
These Days
These Mornings Of Rain
The Thing Itself
Torture
Walker
We Alone
Well
When Golda Meir Was In Africa
Who?
Without Commercials
This is my favourite poem in the collection, “First, they said”:
“First, they said we were savages.
But we knew how well we had treated them
and knew we were not savages.
They they said we were immoral.
But we knew minimal clothing
Did not equal immoral.
Next, they said our race was inferior.
But we knew our mothers
and we knew that our race
was not inferior.
After that, they said we were
a backward people.
But we knew our fathers
and knew we were not backward.
So, then they said we were
obstructing Progress.
But we knew the rhythm of our days
and knew that we were not obstructing Progress.
Eventually, they said the truth is that you eat
too much and your villages take up too much
of the land. But we knew we and our children
were starving and our villages were burned
to the ground. So we knew we were not eating
too much or taking up too much of the land.
Finally, they had to agree with us.
They said: You are right. It is not your savagery
or your immorality or your racial inferiority or
your people’s backwardness or your obstructing of
Progress or your appetite or your infestation of the land
that is at fault. No. What is at fault
is your existence itself.
Here is money, they said. Raise an army
among your people, and exterminate
yourselves.
In our inferior backwardness
we took the money. Raised an army among our people,
And now, the people protected, we wait,
for the next insulting words
coming out of that mouth.”
Alice Walker’s first collection of poems, “Once”, in 1968, was precipitated by her pregnancy and abortion while she was at college. They are intensely personal and full of despair, describing her confusion, isolation, and thoughts of suicide. She viewed writing poetry as a kind of therapy as she worked through her problems. Her second collection in 1973, “Revolutionary Petunias”, deals with more public issues, particularly civil and women’s rights, from an individual’s point of view. In her third collection, six years later,“Good Night, Willie Lee, I’ll See You in the Morning”, she returned to personal thoughts of family and friendship, using her grandparents’ long, solid relationship as a focus.
Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful was her fourth volume of poetry, although it was the first to be published in Great Britain, in 1985. The poems date from between 1979 and 1984, several of them having previously been printed in various women’s and family magazines. The poems are all very accessible.
The title of this collection is from a verse by a Native American shaman “Lame Deer — Seeker of Vision” who, on considering the terrible problems brought by the white settlers, with their whiskey, found she could almost forgive them, because they also brought the beauty of horses to the North American Plains.
Alice Walker is sometimes described as strident and politicised, in both her speech and her writing. The significance in both this title and the dedication to two of her ancestors therefore, is that in these poems, Alice Walker tries to ameliorate her sharp antipathy, and looks for a saving grace in the most terrible circumstances, and even in the hearts of brutal oppressors. It sets the tone for the collection. She is mostly concerned with contemporary social issues. Some poems here addresses huge concerns, such as the need to save our earth from destruction by war and pollution, but in others her attention turns towards small intimate moments, and hidden subliminal thoughts. She describes exchanges between lovers and enemies.
In a way Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful blends the attitudes from her second and third collections, by maintaining a direct, personal voice in the poems, often focusing on an individual’s daily struggles to preserve dignity and liberty despite oppression, hardship and world problems. Alice Walker writes of ageing, of motherhood and childhood, expressing important topics such as regret, love, and courage. She praises the endurance of the human spirit which has endured slavery and humiliation, yet still flourishes and grows. She writes, too, about ordinary joys such as “My daughter is coming!” a lover’s warmth, and even about poetry itself:
“Letting go
in order to hold on
I gradually understand
how poems are made.”
Alice Walker writes in free verse, and uses direct language with simple images. Reading it is more like reading the conversation, or inner thoughts, of an articulate, observant woman. She rarely employs devices or conventions usual in poetry; there are no metaphors, and little use of rhyme or structured metre; an occasional line is repeated for emphasis maybe, but otherwise the lines are like her speech, but chopped up into various short lengths. The language is spare, with few embellishments or attempts at moving description. The common feature to all the poems is that they are didactic. Alice Walker herself say that she has always turned to poetry to express some of her most personal and deeply felt concerns. She maintains that her poems, even the happier ones, emerge from a growing accumulation of sadness, to stand again “in the sunlight”.
The first poem in this collection, “Remember” entreats us not to forget what the condition of black woman used to be:
“I am the girl
holding their babies
cooking their meals
sweeping their yards
washing their clothes
Dark and rotting
and wounded, wounded”
and stating her position now:
“I am the woman
with the blessed
dark skin
I am the woman
with teeth repaired
I am the woman
with the healing eye
the ear that hears.
I am the woman: Dark,
repaired, healed
Listening to you.
I would give
to the human race
only hope …
Justice and Hope
Let us begin”
The simplicity, short line lengths — only one word sometimes — and careful use of capital letters, is typical of her poetry. It is reminiscent of some of e.e. cummings’s work.
In the next poem, “These Mornings of Rain”, Alice Walker speaks gently, with soft eloquence, of love:
“These mornings
I do not need
my beloveds’ arms about me
until much later
in the day ...
to love and be loved
in absentia
is joy enough for me”
(The apostrophe is as it was printed.)
There is also a lamentation for lost love, entitled “Walker”. It is quite short, just one stanza:
“When I no longer have your heart
I will not request your body
your presence
or even your polite conversation.
I will go away to a far country
separated from you by the sea
—on which I cannot walk—
and refrain even from sending
letters
describing my pain.”
And here is another of just one stanza, later in the collection, “love is not concerned”:
“love is not concerned
with whom you pray
or where you slept
the night you ran away
from home
love is concerned
that the beating of your heart
should kill no one.”
Nevertheless some of these poems are desolate. She writes with outrage, of racism, injustice and hunger. Alice Walker’s poems span the whole range of human emotions. In the poem “A Few Sirens”, she expresses despair at the human condition:
“But in the world
children are lost;
whole countries of children
starved to death
before the age
of five
each year;
their mothers squatted
in the filth around
the empty cooking pot
wondering:”
It is sometimes disturbingly alienating, such as this, from “Each One Pull One”:
“We do not worship them.
We do not worship their movies.
We do not worship their songs.
We do not think their newscasts
cast the news.
We do not admire their president.
We know why the White House is white.
We do not find their children irresistible;
We do not agree they should inherit the earth.”
Apparently once Alice Walker’s daughter asked her if she was prejudiced. She then realised that perhaps she had spoken out once too often against white males.
“These days I think of Rebecca.
‘Mama, are you a racist?’ she asks
And I realise I have badmouthed white people
once too often
in her presence“
I too have this slight worry. I do not feel that deliberately separating races, black versus white, and demonising males, so as to encourage antagonism between the genders, can be good. I understand the temptation, the resentment, the savage indictment that injustice still reigns in society: the fate of poor black people, who toil so that white men may savour the jewels that adorn heads of state. And yet, these thoughts are perhaps better expressed in her essays, or revealed in her novels.
The other aspect I find surprising is the poetry’s simplicity; its use of simple form and diction. Critics have praised this as reminiscent of African-American folk parables. One said: “this quality “permit[s] her to reveal homespun truths of human behavior and emotion.” Other have pronounced it “mundane”. Clearly the boundaries between prose and poetry are hardly recognised in her work. Her verse, like her prose, is often rhythmic; but if she rhymes or alliterates, it seems to be almost accidental.
There is a song-like quality in some. This poem is actually called “Song”:
“The world is full of colored
people
People of Color
Tra-la-la
The world is full of
colored people
Tra-la-la-la-la“
This continues for five more verses, with various repetitions. I can recognise the joy, the celebratory aspect, but it does not speak to me.
Here are the final words in the collection:
“Surely the earth can be saved
by all the people
who insist
on love.
Surely the earth can be saved for us.”
I can see where Alice Walker’s preoccupations come from. She was born in Georgia, where her father was a sharecropper. When she was eight years old, she was shot by her brother with an air gun, which fired metal balls. This left her scarred and blind in one eye. Perhaps her anti-male attitude is rooted in this tragic accident, since she felt her father also let her down, by his inability to obtain proper medical treatment for her. The disfigurement made Alice Walker shy and self-conscious, and this led her to writing to try to express herself. Throughout her life, she has respected her mother’s strength and dignity despite their poverty. She remembers her mother’s perseverance, working in the garden to create beauty, even in such unlikely, disadvantaged conditions.
It is perhaps not surprising that Alice Walker’s poetry celebrates womankind, and the solidarity of black people. She revels in a bond of sisterhood with women throughout the world, and a joyous celebration of the female principle touching on mysticism, in its expression of the divine. She has a reverence for the earth, and a sense of unity with all living creatures. Alice Walker’s poetry is highly personal and generally didactic, usually coming from traumatic or other events in her own life. Other poems are related to causes she advocates and feels strongly about, and injustices over which she agonises. With Alice Walker it is always the message that counts. I kept thinking, as I read these however, how much I prefer Maya Angelou’s poetry. Some is deceptively simple and direct, others lush and lyrical, yet others nuanced, complex and full of hidden meanings waiting to be teased out.
The “New York Times Book Review” said: “[This collection] has two fine strengths: a music that comes along sometimes, as sad and cheery as a lonely woman’s whistling, and Miss Walker’s own tragicomic gifts”
Many of my friends have rated it five stars, but I cannot say I agree. I share Alice Walker’s views for the most part, but her poetry is not to my taste. It is too simple. I prefer poems which move me by the quality of their language and their imagery. I like complexity, and to look beneath, for another meaning. I like variation of pattern, of style and metre. Just because I agree with what she says, does not mean that I wish to have my views parroted back to me in pseudo-poetic form. It is not … enough. With written works, I try to rate what I read, rather than the views behind the expression.
However, I am keeping this at my default of three stars, because I think it will appeal to those who do not regularly read poetry, and may tempt others who say they do not like poetry, because they think it is “too difficult”. This type of poetry is universally appealing.
It does not feel like reading poetry. That is both its fault and its virtue.
*****
Here is a complete list of all 41 poems in this volume, in alphabetical order:
1971
Attentiveness
The Diamonds On Liz’s Bosom
Each One, Pull One
Every Morning
Family Of
A Few Sirens
First, They Said *
Gray
How Poems Are Made: A Discredited View
I Said To Poetry
I’m Really Very Fond
If Those People Like You
Killers
Listen
Love Is Not Concerned
Mississippi Winter (1)
Mississippi Winter (2)
Mississippi Winter (3)
Mississippi Winter (4)
My Daughter Is Coming
No One Can Watch The Wasichu
On Sight
Overnights
Poem At Thirty-nine
Remember
Representing The Universe
S M
She Said
Song
Songless
These Days
These Mornings Of Rain
The Thing Itself
Torture
Walker
We Alone
Well
When Golda Meir Was In Africa
Who?
Without Commercials
This is my favourite poem in the collection, “First, they said”:
“First, they said we were savages.
But we knew how well we had treated them
and knew we were not savages.
They they said we were immoral.
But we knew minimal clothing
Did not equal immoral.
Next, they said our race was inferior.
But we knew our mothers
and we knew that our race
was not inferior.
After that, they said we were
a backward people.
But we knew our fathers
and knew we were not backward.
So, then they said we were
obstructing Progress.
But we knew the rhythm of our days
and knew that we were not obstructing Progress.
Eventually, they said the truth is that you eat
too much and your villages take up too much
of the land. But we knew we and our children
were starving and our villages were burned
to the ground. So we knew we were not eating
too much or taking up too much of the land.
Finally, they had to agree with us.
They said: You are right. It is not your savagery
or your immorality or your racial inferiority or
your people’s backwardness or your obstructing of
Progress or your appetite or your infestation of the land
that is at fault. No. What is at fault
is your existence itself.
Here is money, they said. Raise an army
among your people, and exterminate
yourselves.
In our inferior backwardness
we took the money. Raised an army among our people,
And now, the people protected, we wait,
for the next insulting words
coming out of that mouth.”
April 23, 2017
Perhaps Walker should be better known for her poetry than simply best known for The Color Purple. The poems are about race as well as being a woman. This kindle edition includes a brief biography with photos of the author.
February 25, 2015
Some wonderful stuff here.
My three favorites?
The hopeful:
WE ALONE
We alone can devalue gold
by not caring
if it falls or rises
in the marketplace.
Wherever there is gold
there is a chain, you know,
and if your chain
is gold
so much the worse
for you.
Feathers, shells
and sea-shaped stones
are all as rare.
This could be our revolution:
to love what is plentiful
as much as
what's scarce.
--------------------
The angry:
THE DIAMONDS ON LIZ’s BOSOM
The diamonds on Liz’s bosom
are not as bright
as his eyes
the morning they took him
to work in the mines.
The rubies in Nancy’s
jewel box (Oh, how he loves red!)
not as vivid
as the despair
in his children’s
frowns.
Oh, those Africans!
Everywhere you look
they’re bleeding
and crying
Crying and bleeding
on some of the whitest necks
in your town.
-------------------
And the warm and fuzzy:
THESE MORNINGS OF RAIN
These mornings of rain
when the house is cozy
and the phone doesn’t ring
and I am alone
though snug
in my daughter’s
fire-red robe
These mornings of rain
when my lover’s large socks
cushion my chilly feet
and meditation
has made me one
with the pine tree
outside my door
These mornings of rain
when all noises coming
from the street
have a slippery sound
and the wind whistles
and I have had my cup
of green tea
These mornings
in Fall
when I have slept late
and dreamed
of people I like
in places where we’re
obviously on vacation
These mornings
I do not need
my beloveds’ arms about me
until much later
in the day.
I do not need food
I do not need the postperson
I do not need my best friend
to call me
with the latest
on the invasion of Grenada
and her life
I do not need anything.
To be warm, to be dry,
to be writing poems again
(after months of distraction
and emptiness!)
to love and be loved
in absentia
is joy enough for me.
On these blustery mornings
in a city
that could be wet
from my kisses
I need nothing else.
And then again,
I need it all.
My three favorites?
The hopeful:
WE ALONE
We alone can devalue gold
by not caring
if it falls or rises
in the marketplace.
Wherever there is gold
there is a chain, you know,
and if your chain
is gold
so much the worse
for you.
Feathers, shells
and sea-shaped stones
are all as rare.
This could be our revolution:
to love what is plentiful
as much as
what's scarce.
--------------------
The angry:
THE DIAMONDS ON LIZ’s BOSOM
The diamonds on Liz’s bosom
are not as bright
as his eyes
the morning they took him
to work in the mines.
The rubies in Nancy’s
jewel box (Oh, how he loves red!)
not as vivid
as the despair
in his children’s
frowns.
Oh, those Africans!
Everywhere you look
they’re bleeding
and crying
Crying and bleeding
on some of the whitest necks
in your town.
-------------------
And the warm and fuzzy:
THESE MORNINGS OF RAIN
These mornings of rain
when the house is cozy
and the phone doesn’t ring
and I am alone
though snug
in my daughter’s
fire-red robe
These mornings of rain
when my lover’s large socks
cushion my chilly feet
and meditation
has made me one
with the pine tree
outside my door
These mornings of rain
when all noises coming
from the street
have a slippery sound
and the wind whistles
and I have had my cup
of green tea
These mornings
in Fall
when I have slept late
and dreamed
of people I like
in places where we’re
obviously on vacation
These mornings
I do not need
my beloveds’ arms about me
until much later
in the day.
I do not need food
I do not need the postperson
I do not need my best friend
to call me
with the latest
on the invasion of Grenada
and her life
I do not need anything.
To be warm, to be dry,
to be writing poems again
(after months of distraction
and emptiness!)
to love and be loved
in absentia
is joy enough for me.
On these blustery mornings
in a city
that could be wet
from my kisses
I need nothing else.
And then again,
I need it all.
January 28, 2020
Very woke, political poems originally from 1979. Not always my cup of tea, though the free verse slides down easily. And I learned a fact that shocked me to the core: Martin Luther King Jr.’s mother was also assassinated (mentioned in the poem “Killers”). Six years after her son, while playing the organ at her church. How did I never know that?!
A favorite passage:
“I am the woman
offering two flowers
whose roots
are twin
Justice and Hope
Let us begin.” (from the first poem, “Remember?”)
A favorite passage:
“I am the woman
offering two flowers
whose roots
are twin
Justice and Hope
Let us begin.” (from the first poem, “Remember?”)
January 26, 2025
best book of poetry. slice of life with sharp words and soft meanings. this is one of my favorites. I love what Walker pays attention to in her poems. how she writes
about misogynoir and racism is crucial. her hope for a better world is pulsing through the last poem and the self-fulfillment she writes about.
the final lines of the last poem, These Days:
Surely the earth can be saved
by all the people
who insist
on love.
Surely the earth can be saved for us.
about misogynoir and racism is crucial. her hope for a better world is pulsing through the last poem and the self-fulfillment she writes about.
the final lines of the last poem, These Days:
Surely the earth can be saved
by all the people
who insist
on love.
Surely the earth can be saved for us.
July 31, 2024
direct, striking, real.
August 15, 2015
Read in Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems 1965-1990 Complete
Actual rating: 3.75 stars
Yet again, Walker failed to live up to the musicality of her early poetry, but this collection had much more poetry and power than either Revolutionary Petunias or Goodnight Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning. Walker is definitely moving away from the "poetry as space-around-the-words" technique that she employed in her earlier work, and the final leap into a poetry of what is present is reflected in a collection that contains longer poems and mid-length (and even a few long) lines that really make the poems begin to sing in a new way. This is no longer the music of compression, but of long, connected groups of ideas and motifs. Walker's Native American heritage surfaces in these poems as well; the title comes from a quote from Black Elk Speaks about the influence of European colonialism on North America and she has a number of poems that reference the struggles of cultures and races faced by the native inhabitants of the land, including a group of poems that discuss the "Wasichu". "Family Of" discusses a spectral "Wasichu" trying to enter her consciousness and "No One Can watch the Wasichu" is a powerful depiction of the overwhelming presence of white culture and of the societal oppression that people of racial minorities can feel. The use of the Native American narrative as an encapsulation of the greater narrative of race in the United States is a fascinating technique--it highlights the depth of the disparity among races and works to universalize the minority experience.
The poems in the "Mississippi Winter" sequence, "These Mornings of Rain", and "These Days" were the most lyrical of the collection although there were a number of others that flowed more lyrically than in her last two books. "These Mornings of Rain" is a hymn to life:
In all, this was a well-constructed and engaging collection of poems, much more in line with the expectations set by Once
Actual rating: 3.75 stars
Yet again, Walker failed to live up to the musicality of her early poetry, but this collection had much more poetry and power than either Revolutionary Petunias or Goodnight Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning. Walker is definitely moving away from the "poetry as space-around-the-words" technique that she employed in her earlier work, and the final leap into a poetry of what is present is reflected in a collection that contains longer poems and mid-length (and even a few long) lines that really make the poems begin to sing in a new way. This is no longer the music of compression, but of long, connected groups of ideas and motifs. Walker's Native American heritage surfaces in these poems as well; the title comes from a quote from Black Elk Speaks about the influence of European colonialism on North America and she has a number of poems that reference the struggles of cultures and races faced by the native inhabitants of the land, including a group of poems that discuss the "Wasichu". "Family Of" discusses a spectral "Wasichu" trying to enter her consciousness and "No One Can watch the Wasichu" is a powerful depiction of the overwhelming presence of white culture and of the societal oppression that people of racial minorities can feel. The use of the Native American narrative as an encapsulation of the greater narrative of race in the United States is a fascinating technique--it highlights the depth of the disparity among races and works to universalize the minority experience.
The poems in the "Mississippi Winter" sequence, "These Mornings of Rain", and "These Days" were the most lyrical of the collection although there were a number of others that flowed more lyrically than in her last two books. "These Mornings of Rain" is a hymn to life:
On these blustery morningswhile the "Mississippi Winter" poems are at once peaceful and aggressive, simple and layered reminisces on a time and place, describing herself in terms of: "She was not happy/with fences" and certain that she "must whistle/like a woman undaunted" until she reaches her end--regardless of the anticipated lack of a "good" end. Finally "These Days" is a long poem and a call to love and preservation. She describes many people, each full of love, compassion, and joy followed by a haunting refrain of "Surely the Earth can be saved for [name]" ending with the final inhabitant being simply "us":
in a city
that could be wet
from my kisses
I need nothing else.
And then again,
I need it all.
These days I think of Robert
folding his child's tiny shirts
eating TV dinners ("A kind of processed flavor")
rushing off each morning to school--then to the office,
the supermarket, the inevitable meeting: writing,
speaking, marching against oppression, hunger,
ignorance.
And in between having affair
with tiny wildflowers and gigantic
rocks.
In all, this was a well-constructed and engaging collection of poems, much more in line with the expectations set by Once
August 17, 2016
Reading poems by Alice Walker never cease to leave me eager to write—to capture what I am and what I feel about the world around me at this very moment. I imagine her at her desk, perhaps in a room of her own, working through her own pain and uncomfortable emotions and creating these lovely and accessible musings, often with a little twist like this one:
"This could be our revolution:
To love what is plentiful
as much as
what's scarce."
or
"On these blustery mornings
in a city
that could be wet
from my kisses
I need nothing else.
And then again,
I need it all."
You can't help but think, "I can do that." And with poetry, it's entirely true. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. Poetry is designed, like meditation or yoga, so we can all reap the benefits of the practice. Alice Walker is a wonderful teacher.
There are so many gems in this slim volume—poems of all sizes about the ecstasy of love, the fear of cruelty, the pain of injustice, and the sometimes tenuous bonds between people. Don't miss the last poem, "These Days," a ten page poem in which Walker writes a series of celebrations of "people I think of as friends" (including Gloria Steinem and John Lennon & Yoko Ono). I'm definitely making a version of that poem.
"This could be our revolution:
To love what is plentiful
as much as
what's scarce."
or
"On these blustery mornings
in a city
that could be wet
from my kisses
I need nothing else.
And then again,
I need it all."
You can't help but think, "I can do that." And with poetry, it's entirely true. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. Poetry is designed, like meditation or yoga, so we can all reap the benefits of the practice. Alice Walker is a wonderful teacher.
There are so many gems in this slim volume—poems of all sizes about the ecstasy of love, the fear of cruelty, the pain of injustice, and the sometimes tenuous bonds between people. Don't miss the last poem, "These Days," a ten page poem in which Walker writes a series of celebrations of "people I think of as friends" (including Gloria Steinem and John Lennon & Yoko Ono). I'm definitely making a version of that poem.
April 7, 2010
phew. so beautiful and honest.
Walker
When I no longer have your heart
I will not request your body
your presence
or even your polite conversation.
I will go away to a far country
separated from you by the sea
--on which I cannot walk--
and refrain from even sending
letters
describing my pain.
Walker
When I no longer have your heart
I will not request your body
your presence
or even your polite conversation.
I will go away to a far country
separated from you by the sea
--on which I cannot walk--
and refrain from even sending
letters
describing my pain.
Read
July 19, 2016(Also read on October 18, 2011)
December 31, 2022
I think I like walker’s essays more, but still many gems in this collection!
some favorites: “these days” (like a love letter to the world and all the beautiful people), “I said to poetry” (made me laugh), “each one, pull one”, “first, they said”
“This could be our revolution: to love what is plentiful as much as what’s scarce”
some favorites: “these days” (like a love letter to the world and all the beautiful people), “I said to poetry” (made me laugh), “each one, pull one”, “first, they said”
“This could be our revolution: to love what is plentiful as much as what’s scarce”
April 15, 2024
i love when a poetry collection makes you turn back to the first page as soon as you finish it. in this collection of poems, alice walker talks about racism, feminism (& and all its exclusions), nuclear war, the pollution of the planet and so much more. i loved every one of these, alice walker is amazing.
Read
February 9, 2021“For we are all
splendid
descendants
of Wilderness,
Eden:
needing only
to see
each other
without
commercials
to believe.
Copied skillfully
as Adam.
Original
as Eve.”
splendid
descendants
of Wilderness,
Eden:
needing only
to see
each other
without
commercials
to believe.
Copied skillfully
as Adam.
Original
as Eve.”
July 11, 2025
Alice Walker. That's it that's the whole review
May 23, 2024
I loved many of these poems whether centering motherhood, nature, social justice, history, or relationships. Alice Walker's style relies on short lines and prose type poetry, delivering poems that strike with proximity to her heart.
"Surely the earth can be saved
by all the people
who insist
on love.
Surely the earth can be saved for us."
"Surely the earth can be saved
by all the people
who insist
on love.
Surely the earth can be saved for us."
April 22, 2025
"Now I think about how anti-racism
Like civil rights or
Affirmative action
Helps white people too
Even if they are killing us
We have to say, to try to believe,
It is the way they are raised,
Not genetics,
That causes their bizarre,
Death-worshipping
Behavior."
"if we were raised like white people,
To think we are superior to everything else
God made, we too would behave the way
They do"
Tässä ote, joka iski jotenkin vahvasti, etenkin näinä aikoina.
Kokoelma käsittelee raskaita aiheita kauniilla kielellä, jota on helppo lukea. Lukemiseen ei mennyt kuin 30 min tai jotain. Olen ylpeä, että tämä hieno kokoelma oli ensimmäinen englanninkielinen runokokoelmani :)
Like civil rights or
Affirmative action
Helps white people too
Even if they are killing us
We have to say, to try to believe,
It is the way they are raised,
Not genetics,
That causes their bizarre,
Death-worshipping
Behavior."
"if we were raised like white people,
To think we are superior to everything else
God made, we too would behave the way
They do"
Tässä ote, joka iski jotenkin vahvasti, etenkin näinä aikoina.
Kokoelma käsittelee raskaita aiheita kauniilla kielellä, jota on helppo lukea. Lukemiseen ei mennyt kuin 30 min tai jotain. Olen ylpeä, että tämä hieno kokoelma oli ensimmäinen englanninkielinen runokokoelmani :)
February 9, 2021
“I think of the long line of Americans
who should have been president, but weren’t.”
It’s wild (and sad?) that this book was copyrighted almost 40 years ago but still feels so relevant. I admit some of the poems were over my head but beautiful nonetheless.
“This could be our revolution:
To love what is plentiful
as much as what’s scarce.”
who should have been president, but weren’t.”
It’s wild (and sad?) that this book was copyrighted almost 40 years ago but still feels so relevant. I admit some of the poems were over my head but beautiful nonetheless.
“This could be our revolution:
To love what is plentiful
as much as what’s scarce.”
April 11, 2018
The poems in this collection are generally short with fairly short lines. Many poems provide insights into the African-American experience or reflect on events of the 1960s and 1970s. I found the poetry enjoyable.
Read
July 19, 2018Sometimes startling, sometimes brutal, sometimes comforting. There's an energy in a lot of these poems that really made them burrow down into my consciousness, which is just what I want from poetry, anyway. My favorite poems were the ones that laid forth our relationship to the world (natural and social worlds, in particular) and that affirmed our power of redefinition of that relationship, which Walker demonstrated so elegantly in "We Alone":
We Alone
We alone can devalue gold
by not caring
if it falls or rises
in the marketplace.
Wherever there is gold
there is a chain, you know,
and if your chain
is gold
so much the worse
for you.
Feathers, shells
and sea-shaped stones
are all as rare.
This could be our revolution:
to love what is plentiful
as much as
what's scarce.
February 9, 2016
A collection of poems by Alice Walker. I love how her spirit and ethical sense comes through each poem. My favorite poem is "We Alone" which calls us to eschew a love of precious metals and gems which cause ruin to the earth and the people who mine for these rare materials: "This could be our revolution: / to love what is plentiful / as much as / what's scarce."
Read
March 11, 2016This collection of poems were very touching and had deep meaning in them. Walker continuously brought up several topics in her poems, such as discrimination, slavery, native americans, war, peace, and love. Her poems reach to the good and bad in everything and can relate to almost any reader.
May 4, 2009
This was a re-read for our Mother daughter book club. I love the imagery in her poetry. I can't wait to share this one with the girls.
December 21, 2015
Beautiful. The awesome struggle of living, leading and loving in a society that constantly pushes you to the other. How do we honor anger and compassion in the same place, for the same people?
May 9, 2016
Super-readable and still powerful and beautiful. Recommended for people who are interested in social justice and human rights.
September 7, 2016
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14185730
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14185730
December 24, 2016
Just the poem, thinking about Lorraine Hansberry, was 5 stars for me. Inspiring, powerful. I can't believe that I'm just now reading this collection.
October 27, 2014
Great book of poems especially those about her indigenous ancestors.
July 13, 2020
I first bought and read this short collection of Alice Walker's poetry when I was about twenty years old. It's been too long since I revisited it. Walker's poems are sometimes angry, sometimes tender, and, over and over again, poetic in the broad, deep sense. It's not that they adhere to a form such as iambic pentameter, nor that they rhyme. Rather it's that they condense something worth saying, something that may be hard to articulate, into a clear, simple, speaking statement. They talk of racism, feminism, friendship, her father, her daughter, poetry. This is the ending of "A Few Sirens."
And here, gentler, is the ending of "Listen."
It's hard to pick out favorites among so many good poems, but, today, knowing it might shift by tomorrow, I especially liked "These Mornings of Rain," "I Said to Poetry," and "My Daughter is Coming!"
About my reviews: I try to review every book I read, including those that I don't end up enjoying. The reviews are not scholarly, but just indicate my reaction as a reader, reading being my addiction. I am miserly with 5-star reviews; 4 stars means I liked a book very much; 3 stars means I liked it; 2 stars means I didn't like it (though often the 2-star books are very popular with other readers and/or are by authors whose other work I've loved).
But
wasn't there a time
when food was sacred?
When a dead child
starved naked
among the oranges
in the marketplace
spoiled
the appetite?
And here, gentler, is the ending of "Listen."
You would choose
not to come back again,
you say.
Except perhaps
as rock or tree.
But listen, love. Though human,
that is what you are
already
to this student, absorbed.
Human tree and rock already,
to me.
It's hard to pick out favorites among so many good poems, but, today, knowing it might shift by tomorrow, I especially liked "These Mornings of Rain," "I Said to Poetry," and "My Daughter is Coming!"
About my reviews: I try to review every book I read, including those that I don't end up enjoying. The reviews are not scholarly, but just indicate my reaction as a reader, reading being my addiction. I am miserly with 5-star reviews; 4 stars means I liked a book very much; 3 stars means I liked it; 2 stars means I didn't like it (though often the 2-star books are very popular with other readers and/or are by authors whose other work I've loved).
October 16, 2017
"It is not enough to be interminable;/ one must also be precise." Alice Walker's poems here turn a sharp focus onto the world of the 1970s and early 1980s: interpersonal relationships; the experience and politics of being a person, an African American woman, an African American, a woman: colonialism, exploitation and a love of the environment: childhood, growth and friendship.
They do so with a keen, self-critical and unflinching eye, a forensic sense of justice and a great generosity of spirit. Infused with the personal and political sensibilities of the time, they frequently fuse the two into vivid and finely tuned phrases. Take for example these lines on seeing Alberta King's killer on TV: "I can no longer observe such pleased mad/ faces./ The mending heart breaks/ to break again" .
I enjoyed the sharp takedown of a sexist revolutionary in 'Well.' the angry insights of 'The diamonds on Liz's bosom' and the gentle pen portraits of her friends in 'These days.' This does what good poetry can do so well : it offers insights and a powerfully felt understanding in carefully-wrought language, dense with meaning.
They do so with a keen, self-critical and unflinching eye, a forensic sense of justice and a great generosity of spirit. Infused with the personal and political sensibilities of the time, they frequently fuse the two into vivid and finely tuned phrases. Take for example these lines on seeing Alberta King's killer on TV: "I can no longer observe such pleased mad/ faces./ The mending heart breaks/ to break again" .
I enjoyed the sharp takedown of a sexist revolutionary in 'Well.' the angry insights of 'The diamonds on Liz's bosom' and the gentle pen portraits of her friends in 'These days.' This does what good poetry can do so well : it offers insights and a powerfully felt understanding in carefully-wrought language, dense with meaning.
January 28, 2024
Writing this review is proving to be quite difficult, as this book was an emotional and intellectual rollercoaster (in a beautifully healing way). This was my first time reading any of Alice Walker’s writing, and it definitely won’t be the last. The first half of the collection exhibits poems that are absent of comparative literary devices, which makes them easy to follow and generally thought-provoking. In the second half, however, Walker starts to express more candor and emotion in her writing. I was left reconsidering my perspective on life, ideology, and experiences by almost every page. Sure, this collection had some poems that weren’t as impactful, but it absolutely made up for it with every poem that will forever stay with me. It’s been a long time since poetry has made me sob.
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