Reader, it's yet another post about poetry...

 Howdy, hola, and hēi to all my fellow literature lovers (all four of you). Welcome back to everybody's *favorite* column of The Dorm-less Diary, the literature review. I trust you've been having a good start to your semester. Personally, I already feel like I'm in deep waters between school, commuting, and work (though perhaps this sinking feeling is because I recently read The Awakening in English...hmm). Anyways, maybe it's time to kick back, brew a good cup of tea (I recommend Red Rose for all us hostages of the FAFSA), and pick up a good book of poetry. Dickinson, Frost, Whitman...just what one needs to destress after a long day of Honors classes, amirite? 

 

But maybe poetry shouldn't just be leaves of grass or the woods on a snowy evening. As great as those things are, maybe we should also make room for poetry that isn't just the stuff that appeals to your 10th grade American Literature teacher or stuff that makes you dreamy and rested (though there's certainly a place for both). Let's get some poetry that shocks, that bristles with anger and beauty, that looks at the world with all its vitality and viciousness. There's a whole world of contemporary poetry waiting to be explored.

Nothing like a two year old meme...

Enter Tori Ellen Cross Davis' book, a more perfect Union. Cross Davis' book is an exploration of what it is to be both black and female in times such as these. Yes, I know the cover's a bit out there, but it does encapsulate what the book is essentially about. Cross Davis touches on politics and racism intertwining with gender roles, with a scarring gaze that doesn't hold back. She knows how America has and continues to lay multiplied burdens on Black women specifically (e.g., slaves were descended through their mother according to the legal principle of partus sequitur ventrem, so White slaveowners had an economic incentive to rape Black women to get free slave children). And the poet confronts us with devastating as well as quiet force. Just look at "A Black Woman Gets a Window Seat on Aer Lingus," a poem about her experience traveling to Ireland. The small lines add a tightness to Cross Davis' flow, a tightness that is also extended to the poem's well-controlled rhymes. We get a sense, like her speaker does, of not being able to breath. These are technical details that accentuate the poem's force as the poetics drive home the theme.

But there's more to Cross Davis' poetry than the griefs of prejudice. She also takes up topics like sex, motherhood, and the terrors and treasures of getting older, whether that be looking at an old home with new eyes, recalling with new wisdom old college parties, or realizing the small beauty of everyday tasks. In these poems, too, we feel the breath of life, of "hunger locked deep within her." Cross Davis is a poet who "[makes her] love shout." 

So, if you're interested, pick up a copy of a more perfect Union (available at the SU Bookstore!), and come see Cross Davis read live on March 31st, 6:30 p.m. at Stewart Hall. This isn't a paid advertisement or anything (although I would appreciate the coin); I just really like this book, which I picked up upon learning she was coming to Ship. Maybe you, dear reader, will like it as well.