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Rice
Powerful collection and celebration of African American tradition and culture thru the use of simple words.
175 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1995
11 people are currently reading
321 people want to read
About the author
Nikky Finney
31 books130 followersNikky Finney was born at the rim of the Atlantic Ocean, in South Carolina, in 1957. The daughter of activists and educators, she began writing in the midst of the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements. With these instrumental eras circling her, Finney's work provides first-person literary accounts to some of the most important events in American history.
In 1985, and at the age of 26, Finney's debut collection of poetry, On Wings Made of Gauze, was published by William Morrow (a division of HaperCollins). Finney's next full-length collection of poetry and portraits, RICE (Sister Vision Press, 1995), was awarded the PEN America-Open Book Award, which was followed by a collection of short stories entitled Heartwood (University Press of Kentucky, 1998). Her next full-length poetry collection, The World Is Round (Inner Light Books, 2003) was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Award sponsored by the Independent Booksellers Association. In 2007, Finney edited the anthology, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (University of Georgia Press/Cave Canem), which has become an essential compilation of contemporary African American writers. Her fourth full-length collection of poetry, Head Off & Split, is a National Book Award Winner.
Finney and her work have been featured on Russell Simmons DEF Poetry (HBO series), renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson's feature The Meaning of Food (a PBS production) and National Public Radio. Her work has been praised by Walter Mosley, Nikki Giovanni, Gloria Naylor and the late CBS/60 Minutes news anchor Ed Bradley. Finney has held distinguished posts at Berea College as the Goode Chair in the Humanities and Smith College as the Grace Hazard Conklin Writer-in-Residence.
Finney is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University Kentucky. She is a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets
In 1985, and at the age of 26, Finney's debut collection of poetry, On Wings Made of Gauze, was published by William Morrow (a division of HaperCollins). Finney's next full-length collection of poetry and portraits, RICE (Sister Vision Press, 1995), was awarded the PEN America-Open Book Award, which was followed by a collection of short stories entitled Heartwood (University Press of Kentucky, 1998). Her next full-length poetry collection, The World Is Round (Inner Light Books, 2003) was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Award sponsored by the Independent Booksellers Association. In 2007, Finney edited the anthology, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (University of Georgia Press/Cave Canem), which has become an essential compilation of contemporary African American writers. Her fourth full-length collection of poetry, Head Off & Split, is a National Book Award Winner.
Finney and her work have been featured on Russell Simmons DEF Poetry (HBO series), renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson's feature The Meaning of Food (a PBS production) and National Public Radio. Her work has been praised by Walter Mosley, Nikki Giovanni, Gloria Naylor and the late CBS/60 Minutes news anchor Ed Bradley. Finney has held distinguished posts at Berea College as the Goode Chair in the Humanities and Smith College as the Grace Hazard Conklin Writer-in-Residence.
Finney is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University Kentucky. She is a founding member of the Affrilachian Poets
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 29, 2011
I count myself very lucky my library was able to borrow a copy of this book. Reading these poems was a unique experience, a combination of a historical trip to South Carolina and through the family histories and personal life of Finney. These poems are beautiful. None were too challenging but each held a great deal of depth. There is not a single poem in this book that I disliked, that did not make me feel something and to me, poetry is all about feeling, so there really is no higher praise I can give.
Finney states in the introduction "From the early 1700's and for years beyond, in South Carolina, Black people were the major import, and rice, its most favored export. These two entities were intimately linked". Many of the poems directly dealt with this statement, and most of the rest dealt with repercussions. Of course, much of what Finney mentions is relevant to the South in general but her family connection to South Carolina kept her focused on the area.
I read these over a week, a handful of poems at a time. I wanted to sit down and read the book front to back at once but I ended up needing to soak each poem in and that meant putting the book down and walking away to think. The binding of my book says that the owning library catalogues the book under young adult fiction. I do not think it too fitting. This book is most certainly written for all ages but I think young adults are more likely to look in the adult section of the library than adults look in the young adult section.
Of my favorites, Making Foots, The Afterbirth 1931 (which hurt my heart and made me cry), Acquanetta of Hollywood, and Permittable Thunder, I went back and reread, some more than twice. Each of these were about Finney's family, so I definitely believe her strengths as a writer rest in what is familiar and close to her.
The Turtle Ball and The Savoy, 1926 were wonderful. I truly loved these poems. They were arresting and bright.
Pluck and The Butt of the Joke were excellent social criticism. Finney tackles Whoopi Goldberg's roast at the Friar's Club in Joke and makes more of an overall statement towards indifference and historical inaccuracy in Pluck...
Slavery was no opera
soaped or staged
was no historical moment
when African women conceived children
out of love for white men
African women were raped by men
who hauled them away from the auction block
like red hot vaginas on wheels
children came forth of this violence
this is biology not broadway
Each of her poems deserves discussion, for a variety of reasons. But I will leave it as such. Strongly recommended.
Finney states in the introduction "From the early 1700's and for years beyond, in South Carolina, Black people were the major import, and rice, its most favored export. These two entities were intimately linked". Many of the poems directly dealt with this statement, and most of the rest dealt with repercussions. Of course, much of what Finney mentions is relevant to the South in general but her family connection to South Carolina kept her focused on the area.
I read these over a week, a handful of poems at a time. I wanted to sit down and read the book front to back at once but I ended up needing to soak each poem in and that meant putting the book down and walking away to think. The binding of my book says that the owning library catalogues the book under young adult fiction. I do not think it too fitting. This book is most certainly written for all ages but I think young adults are more likely to look in the adult section of the library than adults look in the young adult section.
Of my favorites, Making Foots, The Afterbirth 1931 (which hurt my heart and made me cry), Acquanetta of Hollywood, and Permittable Thunder, I went back and reread, some more than twice. Each of these were about Finney's family, so I definitely believe her strengths as a writer rest in what is familiar and close to her.
The Turtle Ball and The Savoy, 1926 were wonderful. I truly loved these poems. They were arresting and bright.
Pluck and The Butt of the Joke were excellent social criticism. Finney tackles Whoopi Goldberg's roast at the Friar's Club in Joke and makes more of an overall statement towards indifference and historical inaccuracy in Pluck...
Slavery was no opera
soaped or staged
was no historical moment
when African women conceived children
out of love for white men
African women were raped by men
who hauled them away from the auction block
like red hot vaginas on wheels
children came forth of this violence
this is biology not broadway
Each of her poems deserves discussion, for a variety of reasons. But I will leave it as such. Strongly recommended.
April 9, 2021
I love the exuberant, erotic, brash, and sometimes angry voice in this collection, which weaves together family history, Black feminist soliloquy, and pop cultural critique. Finney tells the harrowing story of her father's botched birth, a drunk white doctor harming the infant and killing the mother by failing to remove the afterbirth. She writes about the rituals of hair braiding and the pain (psychological and physical) of being "tender-headed." She lambasts both light-skinned glamour, passing to succeed in Hollywood, and also the caricature of Blackness that Whoopi Goldberg was forced to inhabit, particularly during her Friar Club's roast. She also writes about passion, about queer desire, the history and present of Black women dancing together. Throughout this record of violences, physical and representational, Finney sings of the beauty of Black culture, the power of Black women (there's a great poem about Black hair as a cosmos, the Black woman as astronaut), and the joy of Black poetry. The titular figure of rice balances these two poles, at once a symbol of enslavement (rice plantations in South Carolina) and also a symbol of community, connection, and nourishment (the bowl of rice always on her family's table).
February 12, 2017
I was blessed to hear her read many of these poems at Union, 7 or 8 years ago. I'm so pleased she's being recognized nationally and internationally. Her poetry is gorgeous, unflinching in dealing with the realities of racism, but are not at all political screeds. If you can hear her read, do, because her voice is rich and warm and gorgeous, her manner is that of a person captivated by the sheer beauty of language, and she doesn't "read" her poems so much as feel them into existence, like she's a vessel for another power. Seriously. So many poets suck at reading their work. She's divinely inspired. I've heard Robert Bly read his poems, too, and it's totally different from Finney's style, but there's this same sense that they're being spoken through, that the poems are holy.
May 22, 2018
Nikky Finney was my poetry teacher and mentor at the University of Kentucky years ago. That personal bias aside, this is an astounding, moving work by a woman who splits herself and you wide open as she pours out raw, haunting stories of her family's experience growing up poor, black and strong in southern America.
From "The Afterbirth, 1931":
"...We were a Brown and Pregnant Family
and he would've remembered his school'n
and left his bottle
recollected his manners
and brought his right mind
had another klan called him to their bedside
he would've come right away
he would've never had liquor on his breath
if the color of my daddy's broken limbs
had matched the color of his own but..."
These are powerful poems that tell stories that needed to be told.
From "The Afterbirth, 1931":
"...We were a Brown and Pregnant Family
and he would've remembered his school'n
and left his bottle
recollected his manners
and brought his right mind
had another klan called him to their bedside
he would've come right away
he would've never had liquor on his breath
if the color of my daddy's broken limbs
had matched the color of his own but..."
These are powerful poems that tell stories that needed to be told.
August 18, 2013
Though not as masterful as The World is Round or Head Off & Split, this collection is still rhapsodic; and certainly epic in its length.
May 24, 2015
I've been reading and re-reading this and man oh man. I love it.
March 31, 2019
Nikky Finney uses poetry as memoir to create narratives that talk about her family, growing up in South Carolina, race and gender discussions, slavery, and the fullness and beautifulness of a “simple” bowl of plain rice. Finney states in the preface of Rice, “May we always resist in our hearts what we know to be wrong. May we do right and keep our word. May we know the fullness of plain rice and how simple and delicious a meal it can be with plain words. This is the steel and downy of a true life.” I do feel that after one reads this book of poetry people will understand and accomplish these things completely and wholeheartedly.
Read
July 1, 2020Not really my piece of pie so I’m not rating it because I didn’t finish it. I was under time constraints so I probably missed things but I didn’t feel enough pleasure to keep reading and maybe that’s hedonistic but I read so many kinds of texts and the concept of returning this to this book ranked lower than a dense research text so there’s that.
January 11, 2020
This is everything you want poetry to be. Beautiful language, powerful emotion, thought provoking and a collection where each individual poem, while wonderful on its own, is magical when combined with all the others.
April 10, 2019
Beautiful language. Difficult subject matter. Well presented.
July 12, 2025
LOVE her poetry
September 11, 2012
A serious Southern Voice - I love the integrity of the author and her voice.
August 28, 2025
She speaks the truth. I would love to sit with her around a campfire, If she would have me. I’m not a whisky drinker normally, but the conversation would require it.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews