What do you think?
Rate this book
Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems
“Though we have encountered our share of grief and troubles on this earth, we can still hold the line of beauty, form, and beat. No small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one.”
— from the preface
I was born to grow,
alongside my garden of plants,
poems
like
this one
So writes Alice Walker in this new book of poems, poems composed over the course of one year in response to joy and sorrow both personal and global: the death of loved ones, war, the deliciousness of love, environmental devastation, the sorrow of rejection, greed, poverty, and the sweetness of home. The poems embrace our connections while celebrating the joy of individuality, the power we each share to express our truest, deepest selves. Beloved for her ability to speak her own truth in ways that speak for and about countless others, she demonstrates that we are stronger than our circumstances. As she confronts personal and collective challenges, her words dance, sing, and heal.
— from the preface
I was born to grow,
alongside my garden of plants,
poems
like
this one
So writes Alice Walker in this new book of poems, poems composed over the course of one year in response to joy and sorrow both personal and global: the death of loved ones, war, the deliciousness of love, environmental devastation, the sorrow of rejection, greed, poverty, and the sweetness of home. The poems embrace our connections while celebrating the joy of individuality, the power we each share to express our truest, deepest selves. Beloved for her ability to speak her own truth in ways that speak for and about countless others, she demonstrates that we are stronger than our circumstances. As she confronts personal and collective challenges, her words dance, sing, and heal.
165 pages, Hardcover
First published September 15, 2010
91 people are currently reading
1841 people want to read
About the author
Alice Walker
136 books7,242 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 29 of 180 reviews
December 3, 2017
Walker's poetry is displayed sparingly - word by word tracing down the page - allowing space for all of the reader's memories and feelings that her words call up.
June 28, 2011
It would be tragic enough if "Hard Times Require Furious Dancing" only had the problems that have plagued so much of Alice Walker's work after The Color Purple ( save Possessing The Secret Of Joy, her last classic) For those who grew up in the 80's/90's reading Walker's, it has been hard not to personalize her story, and harder to comment on her decline given her status as the most publicly abused writer in the history of African American literature. As someone who fought segregation in Jackson, Mississippi and patriarchy in the vocal mob of black men obsessed over the Color Purple, Walker bore too much for 100 people, much less one person. It isn’t that big of a stretch to understand why she would wrap herself of a cocoon of new age pieties that sometimes congeal to form novels and poems. Damage, lurking beneath the faux mythological niceties of Temple Of My Familiar, pouring through the family dynamic in the story she forces on By The Light Of My Father’s Smile, and coming from everywhere in the tragically unreadable rainforest monologue that is Absolute Trust In The Goodness Of The Earth, is something the reader has to contextualize in her work( especially if that reader is man.)
One can almost finish the task in “Dancing”, even though there is nary a constructed idea or image to be found in them; just the same oracular statements in one word, two syllable line breaks that have been a trademark of her poetry for the last 20 years. What makes the job impossible, however, is “lost”, her response to her daughter Rebecca’s books about her . In “Black/White/Other” Walker is portrayed as a haunting stereotype, a sixties liberal who got involved with a white man, had a child, and discarded almost any parental responsibility when she discarded the interracial relationship. Worse, in “Baby Love” she is portrayed as monstrous, disowning her daughter when she decides to have a child, and refusing to be there when that child is sick. It got to the point where those who had read Walker’s books were in denial. Surely, this cant be the case! Surely there is some other story were not hearing! Surely, Alice Walker has her side of the story to tell.
“Lost” makes you wish you never asked the question. To the charges her daughter offers, Walker all but tells her: So what? “My daughter is lost to me, but I am not lost” is her response, and to her charge of “happiness is having a loving mother” she says “love for those who have been tethered” who have “known the lash” and have carried the weight of history. The poem is a simulacrum of a conversation Rebecca says Alice had with her in “baby love” where she tells her that because of her mixed race heritage, she doesn’t know suffering. Brutal in the guise of zen, cruel beneath the mask of speaking truth to history, “Lost” is a heartbreaking reversal for Walker, where she embodies the hateful nationalists she critiqued in such classic works as Third Life Of Grange Copeland , Meridan, and In Search Of Our Mother’s Gardens. Simply put, it is the point where the abused becomes the abuser.
I write this queasy about every sentence, every word, and every letter. Given the level of dissonant garbage written by men on feminism( Even (especially?) by men who proclaim to be feminists) there is a part of me that feels wary of wading into the interpersonal struggle between the divergent theories of second and third wave feminism; struggles that the Walker mother/daughter battles have come to symbolize in recent years. I havent fought one of the countless battles that both women fought in order to survive and define who they are, so I don’t have a right to presume I have any definitive opinion on the subjects addressed in their conflict.
All I have in this discussion is memories. Of watching The Color Purple three times in a day, then wanting to read the book at 8 years old; going to the dictionary with words I didn’t know then asking my grandmother about her own story. Of reading Grange Copeland on the city bus to school and seeing him in the tragic, complicated, self-destructive old addicts who both threw and had their lives thrown away at the same time. Of reading Revolutionary Petunias and Good Night Willie lee, I’ll See You In The Morning over and over again to study her use of imagery. Of the craftsmanship and humanity the essays of Mothers Gardens, and how they rewired my brain at the age of 25. And now of the black watermarks of my gray sweater, for I have never cried over writing an essay as much as I have cried over writing this one. I don’t know if I ever will again.
One can almost finish the task in “Dancing”, even though there is nary a constructed idea or image to be found in them; just the same oracular statements in one word, two syllable line breaks that have been a trademark of her poetry for the last 20 years. What makes the job impossible, however, is “lost”, her response to her daughter Rebecca’s books about her . In “Black/White/Other” Walker is portrayed as a haunting stereotype, a sixties liberal who got involved with a white man, had a child, and discarded almost any parental responsibility when she discarded the interracial relationship. Worse, in “Baby Love” she is portrayed as monstrous, disowning her daughter when she decides to have a child, and refusing to be there when that child is sick. It got to the point where those who had read Walker’s books were in denial. Surely, this cant be the case! Surely there is some other story were not hearing! Surely, Alice Walker has her side of the story to tell.
“Lost” makes you wish you never asked the question. To the charges her daughter offers, Walker all but tells her: So what? “My daughter is lost to me, but I am not lost” is her response, and to her charge of “happiness is having a loving mother” she says “love for those who have been tethered” who have “known the lash” and have carried the weight of history. The poem is a simulacrum of a conversation Rebecca says Alice had with her in “baby love” where she tells her that because of her mixed race heritage, she doesn’t know suffering. Brutal in the guise of zen, cruel beneath the mask of speaking truth to history, “Lost” is a heartbreaking reversal for Walker, where she embodies the hateful nationalists she critiqued in such classic works as Third Life Of Grange Copeland , Meridan, and In Search Of Our Mother’s Gardens. Simply put, it is the point where the abused becomes the abuser.
I write this queasy about every sentence, every word, and every letter. Given the level of dissonant garbage written by men on feminism( Even (especially?) by men who proclaim to be feminists) there is a part of me that feels wary of wading into the interpersonal struggle between the divergent theories of second and third wave feminism; struggles that the Walker mother/daughter battles have come to symbolize in recent years. I havent fought one of the countless battles that both women fought in order to survive and define who they are, so I don’t have a right to presume I have any definitive opinion on the subjects addressed in their conflict.
All I have in this discussion is memories. Of watching The Color Purple three times in a day, then wanting to read the book at 8 years old; going to the dictionary with words I didn’t know then asking my grandmother about her own story. Of reading Grange Copeland on the city bus to school and seeing him in the tragic, complicated, self-destructive old addicts who both threw and had their lives thrown away at the same time. Of reading Revolutionary Petunias and Good Night Willie lee, I’ll See You In The Morning over and over again to study her use of imagery. Of the craftsmanship and humanity the essays of Mothers Gardens, and how they rewired my brain at the age of 25. And now of the black watermarks of my gray sweater, for I have never cried over writing an essay as much as I have cried over writing this one. I don’t know if I ever will again.
June 27, 2019
I
just
really
don't
like
poetry
written
like
this.
Excessive
spacing
does
not
make
things
profound.
just
really
don't
like
poetry
written
like
this.
Excessive
spacing
does
not
make
things
profound.
May 2, 2022
I appreciate many of these poems as affirmations, and some I think could’ve stayed in the notebook. At the end of the day, words make the poem for me, but it would’ve been nice if Walker had played around with form, rather than each line being one word for most of these.
“We Pay A Visit to Those Who Play at Being Dead” and “Dying” really resonated with me.
“We Pay A Visit to Those Who Play at Being Dead” and “Dying” really resonated with me.
October 25, 2017
This ‘poetry’ is nothing but the most unbearably schlocky new age greeting card sentimentality – so utterly awful it makes Rupi Kaur seem profound! I haven’t read any of Alice Walker’s fiction; I hear it’s great, or at least some of it is. She should stick to that genre.
March 20, 2011
It is difficult for me to give anything less than 5 stars to Alice Walker's newest collection of poetry, which is more like a series of celebratory meditations than anything else I could try to call it. Having just read these poems out loud this morning, sun peering through curtains, I feel completely energized and renewed. Like a great LP, I will surely be giving this collection many spins in the future. Its shot-in-the-arm philosophy is a wonderful reminder that life is good, sorrow never lasts, and our often-overlooked talents can change the world. It also earns the honor of having the best title for a poetry collection--ever!
Two things stand out to me specifically about the style and content of the book. The first is the allusion Walker makes many times to what I believe is her separation from her daughter, Rebecca. I read several years ago about a riff that grew between Walker and Rebecca, who outed her mother as a bad parent in a vitriolic essay published online. Reading it made me extremely sad--not so much that Walker (who I love and respect) was a bad mother, for she possibly deserves the title (she is human after all)--but by the fact of dirty laundry being aired so freely (as Rebecca says, she wanted to "puncture the myth" surrounding Walker--but why?). It seemed to give Rebecca, whom I also respect, an outlet for her rage at her mother's lack of care, although she said she did it to talk about how feminism is keeping some women from being happy mothers. But I didn't buy it then and don't now. There was a less hurtful way to go about it. Several of the poems in this collection address this separation, and they provide guidance in turning one's sorrow and pain into something more productive.
The other notable facet of the book is the poetic arrangement of words. Instead of using line breaks sparingly, Walker uses a sort of hyper-enjambment, making her poems look like beautiful snakes, or waterfalls. It's a style she used in her last poetry collection as well, and it reminds me of a Gregorian chant. You / want to / linger / on / each / word, as it is transferred from Walker's heart to yours. And when I did, the effect was one of healing.
It's difficult to pick a favorite poem, but probably, if I must: "Told," "The Taste of Grudge" and "Loving Humans."
Two things stand out to me specifically about the style and content of the book. The first is the allusion Walker makes many times to what I believe is her separation from her daughter, Rebecca. I read several years ago about a riff that grew between Walker and Rebecca, who outed her mother as a bad parent in a vitriolic essay published online. Reading it made me extremely sad--not so much that Walker (who I love and respect) was a bad mother, for she possibly deserves the title (she is human after all)--but by the fact of dirty laundry being aired so freely (as Rebecca says, she wanted to "puncture the myth" surrounding Walker--but why?). It seemed to give Rebecca, whom I also respect, an outlet for her rage at her mother's lack of care, although she said she did it to talk about how feminism is keeping some women from being happy mothers. But I didn't buy it then and don't now. There was a less hurtful way to go about it. Several of the poems in this collection address this separation, and they provide guidance in turning one's sorrow and pain into something more productive.
The other notable facet of the book is the poetic arrangement of words. Instead of using line breaks sparingly, Walker uses a sort of hyper-enjambment, making her poems look like beautiful snakes, or waterfalls. It's a style she used in her last poetry collection as well, and it reminds me of a Gregorian chant. You / want to / linger / on / each / word, as it is transferred from Walker's heart to yours. And when I did, the effect was one of healing.
It's difficult to pick a favorite poem, but probably, if I must: "Told," "The Taste of Grudge" and "Loving Humans."
February 11, 2017
I don't typically like poetry, but I love Alice Walker. She speaks to my soul. These poems were both speed-read and lingered over, and they touched me both ways.
October 2, 2025
This is like what jazz is to me.
March 24, 2023
2.5 stars rounded up to 3. I love Alice Walker’s prose and, with high expectations, I assumed her poetry would surely resonate with me. Unfortunately, most of the poems in this collection didn’t really speak to me.
If you’re an Alice Walker fan, however, please don’t let my mediocre rating deter you from making your own determination. Perhaps this one just requires a second read for one to truly appreciate it or perhaps I picked it up at the wrong time.
If you’re an Alice Walker fan, however, please don’t let my mediocre rating deter you from making your own determination. Perhaps this one just requires a second read for one to truly appreciate it or perhaps I picked it up at the wrong time.
June 8, 2022
I am more a fan (a huge fan) of Alice Walker's prose than her poetry. That said, there are several poems in here that were true and touching, somewhat breathtaking as well.
EVEN SO
Love, if it is love, never goes away. It is embedded in us,
like seams of gold in the Earth,
waiting for light,
waiting to be struck.
(copyright 2010 Alice Walker)
The illustrations alone would be reason enough to purchase the book. Shiloh McCloud has a gift for portraying woman and motion in ways that touch the heart. Included at the back is information on her and her project "The Palm of Her Hand Foundation." An index of poems is also in the back and a brief note from Alice. Their websites respectively are: www.alicewalkersgarden.com and www.shilohsophia.com. Read also about Alice's projects with okarichildren.com.
I would recommend this book to readers of Alice's fiction and to those just discovering her or her poetry.
EVEN SO
Love, if it is love, never goes away. It is embedded in us,
like seams of gold in the Earth,
waiting for light,
waiting to be struck.
(copyright 2010 Alice Walker)
The illustrations alone would be reason enough to purchase the book. Shiloh McCloud has a gift for portraying woman and motion in ways that touch the heart. Included at the back is information on her and her project "The Palm of Her Hand Foundation." An index of poems is also in the back and a brief note from Alice. Their websites respectively are: www.alicewalkersgarden.com and www.shilohsophia.com. Read also about Alice's projects with okarichildren.com.
I would recommend this book to readers of Alice's fiction and to those just discovering her or her poetry.
November 6, 2017
I don't normally prefer to read poetry with single word lines. I didn't even love every single poem in this volume. I rate this five stars for the poems that shook me to my soul.
There's a lot going on in my life right now, so the coincidence of stumbling upon a poetry collection named "Hard Times Require Furious Dancing" seems to be almost fate. Every poem in this collection was readable. Some of them gave me exactly what I needed in life just when I needed it. The poem "I Will Not Deny" struck me especially at the moment.
I definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a quality poetry volume. I also recommend this to anyone going through a time that might require furious dancing.
There's a lot going on in my life right now, so the coincidence of stumbling upon a poetry collection named "Hard Times Require Furious Dancing" seems to be almost fate. Every poem in this collection was readable. Some of them gave me exactly what I needed in life just when I needed it. The poem "I Will Not Deny" struck me especially at the moment.
I definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a quality poetry volume. I also recommend this to anyone going through a time that might require furious dancing.
Read
November 27, 2023Another beautiful book! I love the exploration of hope in the face of suffering. This was one of my fave quotes from the book: "How many times has life seemed too steep a hill to climb/how many times the hill has disappeared like mist"
June 10, 2025
I hope this book lives on my coffee table years
down the line for my kids to pick up and flip through at random intervals throughout their lives until eventually one time it clicks and they become cooler and wiser than me
down the line for my kids to pick up and flip through at random intervals throughout their lives until eventually one time it clicks and they become cooler and wiser than me
March 11, 2011
Alice's poetry is a raw call for us to be kind and forgiving to others as well as ourselves. It's a call to "all grandmothers" to help replenish understanding on the earth and of the earth. One of the many most beautiful lines, "there is no graceful way to carry hatrid. While hidden it is everywhere. And "isn't it slippery? Might you not someday drop it on yourself." Unfortunately the tone of this poem "Watching You Hold Your Hatrid" is a little more transparent and turse than the other poems and likely speaks of her relations with her daughter. The two have been estranged for years and knowing the reasons, it leads one to wonder whether it is Alice who really cannot forgive exposing the nature her daughter's childhood. It wouldn't be the first time a writer has used the poison pen to sub-consciously or malevolently mislead the masses. While a bit personal, it is still beautifully written...in my opinion, insightful and powerful. It challenges us all to be better. Louanne
http://tinyurl.com/4udkht7
http://tinyurl.com/4udkht7
January 31, 2017
Aching & joyful. Came across this at the library and sat down to read one or two poems, but ended up devouring the whole thing. I love how Alice Walker writes of distress and despair in such a calm and potent way - distanced but certainly not detached. "The Taste of Grudge" was a particular highlight:
"My love
will flow
around
your
rocks
break
your
dam
& live
in
all
the
trampled
plants
of
your
fouled
wilderness."
"My love
will flow
around
your
rocks
break
your
dam
& live
in
all
the
trampled
plants
of
your
fouled
wilderness."
July 9, 2015
Alice Walker is everything to me.
September 7, 2021
hmm ... rather disappointed. Absolutely ❤️ the title and the cover.
April 23, 2024
Många av bokens dikter handlar om, som jag tolkar dem, om att leva med smärta och sorg men samtidigt gå vidare, överleva och bli (ännu) mer fri och detta genom att låta kärleken genomsyra ens förhållningssätt till världen. Och då avses inte primärt romantisk kärlek, utan kärlek i vidare mening; till människorna, till det skapade, till sig själv med ens defekter och till en värld som innehåller sprickor. För mig gestaltar boken ett religiöst förhållningssätt till världen. Läsningen blir för mig uppfriskande och en påminnelse om den tid vi lever i: där många präglas av en kultur där sorg och "misslyckande" är något fult. Här påminns jag om att dessa saker är en lika naturlig del av livet som att andas och att skratta. Dikterna var lite väl deskriptiva för min smak, som en semi-prosa i diktform. Jag hade önskat lite mer skärvor av verkligheten, mer subtil poesi, snarare än att få alla sakförhållanden beskrivna.
November 15, 2020
"There is indeed a Buddha in every one of us. Loving humans with all our clear & unmistakable reluctance to evolve makes this hard for most humans to see. But not you".
I have not read anything else by Walker (yet!), but this volume felt very personal. Her voice was gritty, the language terse and sparse, commenting on relationships, spirituality, and social justice. Her words were hopeful but she didn't pull any punches. I flat out bawled at "They have a bad track record of mass graves" even if i did find it a bit egotistical. The title really says it all, this little volume was full of strong words for difficult topics and times.
I have not read anything else by Walker (yet!), but this volume felt very personal. Her voice was gritty, the language terse and sparse, commenting on relationships, spirituality, and social justice. Her words were hopeful but she didn't pull any punches. I flat out bawled at "They have a bad track record of mass graves" even if i did find it a bit egotistical. The title really says it all, this little volume was full of strong words for difficult topics and times.
January 21, 2021
A poetry book to help shake off feelings of doom and gloom. I highly recommend doing as the title suggests. Walker wants us to trod over the tainted and corrupt Earth, and stomp on the seeds of our own making to get them into the ground for new growth to take root. This joyous book asserts how much harder it is to find love if you do not own a sofa, proclaims that she will keep broken things, “their beauty/is/they/need/not/ever/be/‘fixed,’ and asks "Have you ever/heard/of/poetic license?/...it is when/the poet/writes/buffaloes/instead/of buffalo/because/their/numbers/are now/so/thin/&/she/does/not/want/the remaining/tiny/herds/to feel/lonely."
August 11, 2022
There are absolutely lines and sections here that I loved. For the most part though, I found the choice of spacing prohibitive, as there were often only one or two words to a line, which could make it difficult to hold the meaning in your head from word to word, line to line, page to page to page. One of the best parts of the book was the presence of illustrations of a “line” every few poems. The graphics combined with seeing a full line expressed was really beautiful. In some ways it felt like reading Rumi or Hafiz, and I mean that positively. Still, I will stick to Walker’s other work most likely in the future.
Read
May 3, 2022tbh i didn't have that much of an issue with the writing style like other readers seem to have done but maybe it's because i'm just awesome, but other than that this collection was...okay? i really liked loving humans, i gave it freely, and dying.
March 13, 2019
The illustrations in this book are so so beautiful !
August 23, 2025
as a teacher this is made for us
Read
August 24, 2025A few monks need a cuddle buddy!
July 2, 2022
Comforting. Safe. Redemptive.
September 8, 2021
I judged a book by its title & it worked out/was wonderful.
April 4, 2011
I'm not a big fan of disliking a book; I rarely do so and this book is no exception to that rule. My general approach is to find a better way of reading and enjoying it. I struggled through my first read. The poetry seemed flat; it lacked dynamism in images and language that I felt the emotional intensity of the subject matter could have used. Walker's strange blending of Self-annihilating, earthy Buddhism and her always strong, wise, and assertive motherly ethos appeared at times as the conflicting manner in which egotism seems to meet with Eastern philosophy so much in our culture. Rereading Hard Times... as a series of meditations attempting to negotiate these identities while coping with loss, grief, and distance from loved ones, however, has given me a better appreciation for the collection and the place from which Walker writes.
The poetic structure is simple and contemplative. There isn't much movement in the verse; it reads much like pages taken from the Tao Te Ching. For example, in her poem, "Rich" - a fairly simplistic if not didactic view of earthly wealth over worldly concerns - the first stanza reads:
It takes
so little
to make
me happy:
An hour
of planting
cucumbers
squash
tomatoes
is
an
hour
filled
with
gold.
This stanza highlighted a few of the negative thoughts I had upon my first reading of the book. The image of a garden above a purse of gold, the poem's later depiction of Wall Street as a dragon felt stale and ineffective to me. The line spacing and lack of dynamic verse seemed only to belabor the easy-enough-to-understand anti-materialistic view of the poet. Other poems elicit similar reactions from me. Her pro-vegetarian poem, "La Vaca, for example, states (again fairly simply):
Look
into
her eyes
and know:
She does not think
of
herself
as
steak.
Upon rereading the book, however, the line spacing, the simplicity, and the raw power of some of the poetry insists on being viewed as a series of consistently strong meditations despite confronting death and grief continuously. Her emotional wisdom is the subject of these poems. From her very short "The Answer is Yes:" "you must / run around like a / crazy person / or /walk /sedately / honoring / the /dead" to her poem to the grandchild she has yet to see, "Meeting You," there is an emotionally resonant strength and humor to her mediations.
At times, however, as in "The Taste of Grudge," Walker's transcendental persona devolves into condescension at times. The writer reminds her begrudging friend, "I may die / tonight / perhaps you / are killing me. / I do not / blame you / for anything," only after several chastising remarks. At first, I read this as a betrayal of her "Grand Mother" persona, but finally found its strength in its realism and honesty. The poem ends with an excellent axiom:
We were
not meant
to suffer
so much
& to learn
nothing.
While Buddha-like in her more didactic poems, much of the rest of her collection reveals these human moments of negotiation between her transcendental ethos and her very human and maternal Self, providing the book with the dynamism I originally hadn't seen.
When read sporadically as a series of meditations, this book of poetry proves resonant, mature, and relevant.
The poetic structure is simple and contemplative. There isn't much movement in the verse; it reads much like pages taken from the Tao Te Ching. For example, in her poem, "Rich" - a fairly simplistic if not didactic view of earthly wealth over worldly concerns - the first stanza reads:
It takes
so little
to make
me happy:
An hour
of planting
cucumbers
squash
tomatoes
is
an
hour
filled
with
gold.
This stanza highlighted a few of the negative thoughts I had upon my first reading of the book. The image of a garden above a purse of gold, the poem's later depiction of Wall Street as a dragon felt stale and ineffective to me. The line spacing and lack of dynamic verse seemed only to belabor the easy-enough-to-understand anti-materialistic view of the poet. Other poems elicit similar reactions from me. Her pro-vegetarian poem, "La Vaca, for example, states (again fairly simply):
Look
into
her eyes
and know:
She does not think
of
herself
as
steak.
Upon rereading the book, however, the line spacing, the simplicity, and the raw power of some of the poetry insists on being viewed as a series of consistently strong meditations despite confronting death and grief continuously. Her emotional wisdom is the subject of these poems. From her very short "The Answer is Yes:" "you must / run around like a / crazy person / or /walk /sedately / honoring / the /dead" to her poem to the grandchild she has yet to see, "Meeting You," there is an emotionally resonant strength and humor to her mediations.
At times, however, as in "The Taste of Grudge," Walker's transcendental persona devolves into condescension at times. The writer reminds her begrudging friend, "I may die / tonight / perhaps you / are killing me. / I do not / blame you / for anything," only after several chastising remarks. At first, I read this as a betrayal of her "Grand Mother" persona, but finally found its strength in its realism and honesty. The poem ends with an excellent axiom:
We were
not meant
to suffer
so much
& to learn
nothing.
While Buddha-like in her more didactic poems, much of the rest of her collection reveals these human moments of negotiation between her transcendental ethos and her very human and maternal Self, providing the book with the dynamism I originally hadn't seen.
When read sporadically as a series of meditations, this book of poetry proves resonant, mature, and relevant.
February 12, 2015
** Throwback Thursday Book Review **
I read Hard Times Require Furious Dancing a few years ago, after discovering the book on a shelf at a local book store and wrote this review:
Since then I have become addicted to great poetry and my collection of poetry books has grown significantly. But, no matter how many books of poetry I add to my collection, Alice Walker's Hard Times Require Furious Dancing can more than hold its own and still has pride of place on my shelf next to my books of Maya Angelou poems.
I read Hard Times Require Furious Dancing a few years ago, after discovering the book on a shelf at a local book store and wrote this review:
"Although I had read (and loved) The Color Purple, I never read any of Alice Walker’s poetry until I came upon Hard Times Require Furious Dancing in a local bookstore. I am a sucker for a good title and this one caught my eye. I was also intrigued by the beautiful illustrations on the cover and scattered throughout the book. Although, I do not have many poetry books in my personal library (although I am sure that is going to change in the near future), I knew, after a quick skim of some of the poems, that I needed to bring this book home. I strongly recommend poems like: “We Pay a Visit to Those Who Play At Being Dead,” “Some Lovers,” “I Will Keep Broken Things,” and “Calling All Grand Mothers.” I personally enjoyed this collection very much and look forward to reading more of Alice’s poetry in the future."
Since then I have become addicted to great poetry and my collection of poetry books has grown significantly. But, no matter how many books of poetry I add to my collection, Alice Walker's Hard Times Require Furious Dancing can more than hold its own and still has pride of place on my shelf next to my books of Maya Angelou poems.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 180 reviews