The Soldier in the Poet

For me reading Soldier was about experiencing the actual life of such a prolific writer. Since Jordan’s death much has been said about her life, personality, and writing. I think people often forget that June Jordan isn’t just another african american writer but that she is a child of immigrant parents. When considering the pool [...]

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Catfish,Memory, Poetry, Race, and Pain

“I am soaked in self-pity. Then it rains and I begin to shiver. Cornered, I do what I always do  in absolute desperation: I bite my lip and plunge into the street. Pham 43
Andrew Pham is clearly a poet his stunning imagery and powerful content along with amazing verbs punch a hole into the readers [...]

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For your enjoyment…

Here’s a review of Eat Pray Love that I found to be pretty right-on. Articulates a lot of the things we all talked about, and also gets to why I too found this “a book I loved and hated at once.”
http://www.notitles.com/?page_id=29

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elegy for a soldier

Elegy for a Soldier
June Jordan, 1936-2002
by Marilyn Hacker
I.
The city where I knew you was swift.
A lover cabbed to Brooklyn
(broke, but so what) after the night shift
in a Second Avenue
diner. The lover was a Quaker,
a poet, an anti-war
activist. Was blonde, was twenty-four.
Wet snow fell on the access
road to the Manhattan Bridge. I was
neither lover, slept uptown.
But [...]

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Double vision: High walls, lush garden, open space of story

(Note: Please excuse the lateness of this. I beg birthday, having turned 33 last night.)

Oh, I had the slow burn on this one at first. Another 400 page person of color second generation homeland narrative? But I have deadlines and my birthday and a keynote speech to write and blahhhh. Do I have [...]

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Present perfect

Tara Bahrampour writes her memoir in present tense, a technique employed by Elizabeth Gilbert in “Eat, Pray, Love” and who knows how many other brilliant wizards of non-fiction craft. I think I want to write my final paper on this approach and its myriad benefits for both writer and reader. I only wish I’d been [...]

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Bahrampour’s Inner Child

Other than the use of fluid, straightforward diction, succinct, yet lush structure, and beautiful familiarity with storytelling, I found Bahrampour’s comprehension and way of portraying childhood through prose to be absolutely brilliant.  Sometimes I forgot that I was reading the words of an adult writing from the POV of a little girl.  The language was [...]

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simplicity

To See and See Again.
Where does a story start? Where does it end? How do you tell a story?
What I really like about this particular memoir is that Bahrampour revisits the same moment with different perspectives. For example, the author first describes her childhood recollections of revolution (and what a revolution it is too!) and [...]

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Juxtapositions

Juxtapositions
 
To See and See Again is a journey towards discovering all of her true self. From the beginning, I fell in love with her honesty, insight of her cultural duality and her child-like perspective. This memoir was relatable to me because I am biracial, although only grew up in California, I understand the complexity of [...]

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The personal is universal – To See and See Again

In one of the last scenes of the book, Bahrampour is sitting with Carla and her mother, remnants from her distant past and culture-straddlers like herself, trying to think of some connective bridge that she can articulate. She wonders if she should say something specific, like “How happy I am to discover that they are [...]

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