My Father's Geography

by Afaa Michael Weaver

"Weaver's life studies and lyrics are imbued with a vivid sense of language, a vivid sense of the world, a vivid sense of their inseparability. And his tonal range―from unabashed passion to the subtlest velleity―is impressive indeed. This is a singular talent."―Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published June 15, 1992

About the author

Afaa Michael Weaver was born Michael S. Weaver and grew up in East Baltimore, the son of a beautician and a steelworker. He entered the University of Maryland–College Park at the age of 16 and studied engineering for two years. He then joined the Army Reserves and worked alongside his father at the Bethlehem Steel mill. His firstborn son died at 10 months of complications from Down syndrome. Weaver worked at the mill and, later, a factory for a total of 15 years, writing poetry on coffee breaks, before publishing his first collection, Water Song (1985). It is a time he describes as a literary apprenticeship, during which he founded 7th Son Press and the journal Blind Alleys. He then earned an MA in theater and playwriting from Brown University, concurrent with a BA from Excelsior College.

Influenced by Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Michael Harper, and Jay Wright, Weaver writes poetry that engages the intersection of contemporary African American culture, the African American literary tradition, and the technical constraints of contemporary Chinese poetry. “He explores and rethinks questions of identity. Over the years, he has listened to a chorus of other voices, the inflections of the past, as they have come together to shape and enlarge his own distinctive, musical voice,” Ed Hirsch observed of Weaver’s Timber and Prayer (1995).

Weaver’s numerous collections of poetry include The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985 to 2005 (2007). He edited the anthology These Hands I Know: African-American Writers on Family (2002), and co-edited Gathering Voices (1985) with James Taylor and David Beaudouin. Weaver has been awarded a Pushcart Prize and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pew Foundation, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He was a Poet-in-Residence at Bucknell University’s Stadler Center and taught as a Fulbright Fellow at National Taiwan University. Among Weaver’s achievements is his invention of a new poetic form, “The Bop,” which he created during a Cave Canem summer retreat.

He has taught at Rutgers University, Cave Canem, and Simmons College, where he co-founded the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Center and launched the International Chinese Poetry Conference.

In 1997, to mark his release from the weight of grief that he had carried since the death of his first son, Weaver chose a new name, Afaa, meaning “oracle,” with the help of Nigerian playwright Osonye Tess Onwueme.

Reviews

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of Michael Weaver's early books and it is a gem. For a poetry book it is surprising to find a short essay in the center of the book. Ingenious! He uses this to tell the story of his father and the cultural tensions between the north and south. He grew up in Baltimore, his dad was from Virginia.

"My Father's Geography" contains moving poems about his relationship with his dad, and his growing up in this culturally mixed world, and love. We also get an early view of America post-slavery, as well as the authors deep well of connection. In the second longest poem in the book, "New England," he writes, "who took this blessed nation/out of heaven's launch/and set her virgin hull/into the world's deep blood."

I have his latest book "The Plum Flower Dance" and feel better prepared to launch into more of his work. I will come back to reread this book because it is so rich. He starts each of these two books with his poem, "Ego.: Here it is:

Ego

God's voice
is caught in
the crackling commotion
of thought,
like dried leaves—
breaking.