Number 5 of books that blew me away

Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen (1961) brings the sent of my grandmother’s iron to me in “I Stand Here Ironing.” This is a small collection of short stories with words as carefully chosen as the stones in the pocket of a four-year-old, and just as valuable. The lives on display here can be pondered for a long time. Take the time to think after reading this.

Number 4 of books that blew me away

Hang on to your hats folks.

NW by Zadie Smith (2012) brought me to my knees as a reader. Once I recovered I read it again. This book is thick with both action and philosophy and literary tricks. I had to take notes to follow the characters and who was talking as well as do some reading on the background of London culture. It follows four characters in northwest London using a variety of literary techniques - switching voices, a stream of consciousness narrative, and incomplete thoughts that linger unanswered. Reading this book is not an easy undertaking but I found it rewarding and disturbing in the way life is.

Number 3 of Books That Blew Me Away

I recently reread The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) by Junot Diaz. The story of a nerdboy Dominican Republic American struggling with love and life, it holds my attention to the end. Although the fantasy and gamer jargon and the DR Spanglish may confound a reader, there are many line by line definitions to be found if you just search the title on the Internet.

http://www.annotated-oscar-wao.com/index.html

It is a heartbreakingly beautiful reflection on manhood and the essence of love. In light of his recent New Yorker article (4/16/2018) "The Silence: The Legacy of Childhood Trauma", this work is worth a deeper examination.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-silence-the-legacy-of-childhood-trauma

Number 2 of Books That Blew Me Away

Number Two

One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty (1984) spoke to me as a teen in Jackson, Mississippi.  I heard the voices in “Why I live at the P.O.” and loved to write. Miss Welty’s house was close to Belhaven College and Millsaps in Jackson so I knew she was real. My mother had seen her in the grocery store. Writer’s were real; their stories were real. My secret dream was real too.

Ten Books That Blew Me Away

This is in response to the FaceBook challenge from Patricia Spears Jones to list ten books that have blown me away.

The Spiral Dance by Starhawk was first published in 1979. I arrived in California in 1980. I can’t remember when I first read this but I remember the excitement of reading in print the Wicca life I had only heard about. Coming from a Southern Christian background, this was beyond the comparative religion classes where I read the Bhagavad Gita. After the second edition came out in 1989, I danced with Starhawk and many others under the full moon and asked for healing for Mother Earth. I have a signed copy from that night.

Home Sick

Waking in the afternoon long ago,

To the sound of my mother weeping.

Counterpoint to the swell of the soap opera speaking,

Then, a hiss, and the sharp burning smell of iron on cotton.

Sheets, pants, skirts, and finally, shirts.

Stacks of cloth on the sofa, waiting.

All the laundry finally bleached, folded, ironed.

I learned on my father’s handkerchief, a clean one daily.

This summer afternoon, in my home, alone,

My dead friend has left me weeping

Keeping the cycle of washing, folding, and ironing,

Back aching, I took more from my closet hangers.

The long day, I ironed the unironed and the ironed.

Running the steaming, hissing point into each dart and crease.

Finally, my wardrobe hung, ready for distributing

After I leave, as we all eventually will.

Defiant

Beyond the Internet, but not the ubiquitous Dollar General

Winding through the green pavements of the upstate border road

Carolina green dreams.

Sway down a dirt drive to a distillery made by Florida pirates

Falling slats of shacks showing a gleaming barrel inside

Barking dog on the hill tells me no one is home

Left thirsty.

Long an expatriate in a foreign land,

Adopted by a cold California mountain.

Pines, bold obsidian, sandy path

Almost forty years in Sierra wilderness,

The high desert home, until

I left, thirsty

South, the music is right

Like rainy afternoons followed by the steaming green.

True in my heart to dance with a cousin,

Touch okra and taste tomatoes.

My bifurcated soul spans this country

Stretches tight, snaps back.

Neither blue ocean, neither side slakes my thirst

Even with whiskey, I thirst.