Product Description

This anthology represents Alice Walker’s complete earlier poetry,
from the summer of 1965 when she traveled to East Africa and
began the poems that would form her first collection, through her
poetry of the civil rights movement and beyond. Revelatory introductions
to each group of poems provide a special insight into the evolving
consciousness of one of the most remarkable and provocative literary
minds of our time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #515228 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Amazon.com Review
The quest for peace and joy in a difficult world drives Walker's poetry. Even the most difficult moments can be redeemed, she seems to be saying in the excellent "Good Night Willie Lee, I'll See you in the Morning." Walker has grown as a poet, so that much of the strongest material comes in the later work, especially the wistful "Poem at Thirty-Nine." Highly recommended.

From Publishers Weekly
Composed, wry, unshaken by adversity, Walker ( The Color Purple ) in her poetry brings a woman's wisdom to bear on love, life's unavoidable tragedies, blacks' struggle for equality and justice, and a globe spinning toward eco-suicide. The collection (including nine previously unpublished selections) moves from early, delicate snapshots of Walker's travels to East Africa ( Once ), through taut, politically charged communiques from the Deep South of the late 1960s and early '70s ( Revolutionary Petunias ) to confessions of spiritual breakdown, followed by an expansive reaching out to the world ( Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful ). Her strong, beautiful voice veers from reverence for the earth to fiery protest over the West's use of the Third World as a dumping-ground for wastes and nuclear tests. Capturing the absurdist predicament of our finite lives ("on the way, maybe--to being daffodils"), these poems beckon us to heal ourselves and the planet.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
If Walker speaks the language of hope in prose, in poetry she may well speak the language of despair. Although she clearly finds poetry redemptive, many of the poems in this 25-year collection are wrenching in their anger and the lapidary nature of their pain. While her voice has moved from earlier, calligraphic images of Africa and life in the South to the more sinuous and elegant line of longer poems written for friends, relatives, and lovers, her themes remain constant. Over the decades, the variegated beauty of black faces and voices, power and its skewed effect on the lives of women, the rich fire of sexual attraction, and a passionate attachment to the earth and its creatures inform and shape her poetry. She is not without a sense of humor both wry and scathing: a "found poem" she built from The New York Review of Books includes the line "She assumes her romance/ with Du Bois/ to be as interesting as any other aspect/ of his career." Or, in her verse to poetry: "Poetry laid back/ and played dead/ until the morning." This comprehensive collection has a few never-before-published poems, including the exquisite hymn to the earth that gives the book its title.
- GraceAnne A. DeCandido, "School Library Journal"
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Surrounded With Inspiration
Startled to find so many poems that resonated in my own life, I copied many down and posted them around by room. Each provides a meditation on a different theme, from death to distraction, affairs of the heart to hunger and the nagging, geographic pull to home. When I give my speech at graduation next week, it will end with "The Nature Of This Flower Is To Bloom," thanks to Alice Walker.

Great Compilation
I love the structure of her poems. She writes for those who have forgotten how things used to be with African American life and struggles. My favorite section in the book is from "Revolutionary Petunias" and "Willie Lee." Walker has been an inspiration for me in writing poetry. I love her use of imagery in her free verse. It was commented that Walker relies too much on her relationships in her personal friendships in her writing. But I disagree. I propose that no one should read her poetry without reading her autobiography of her past. Most poets will create an illusion of situations, but Walker alludes to her past and speaks the truth to us all. I hope she sees this because I've always wanted to talk with her and ask her about the things I have written, but I am in the process of challenging myself to want the reader to feel something in a meter that they can feel but not see. Then THATS incredible. Nice work Ms. Walker

Walker Convert
Reading Alice Walker reviews here on Amazon is highly annoying. Either they praise her to the skies, scouring any who react with an analytical response, or they attack her for the racial simplicities that some see as marring her work (those who get annoyed by her "white folk have no rhythm" trope). Both extremes have not been very useful for promoting *my* greater understanding of her work--I see the talent seething, squirming in her--but through many books, there were twists in her choices that alienated her talent to me.

Simply put, this book that convinced me Alice is a Talent with a capital "T". She starts with a lovely preface, "In keeping faith with Poetry's honest help to me, I have not deleted or changed--beyond a word or two--anything I have written, though greatly tempted at times to do so. The young self, the naive promiscuous self, appear doubly vulnerable now, in light of my unexpected bonus of years, and the experience they have brought me. I embrace them all, as Poetry embraced me..." From there, she follows with some beautiful, beautiful poetry, speaking to the struggle to develop and improve as an artist.

There are mis-steps, irritations. "There are no tigers/in Africa!/You say./Frowning./Yes. I say./Smiling./But they are/very beautiful." doesn't do much for me. I prefer my evocations of Africa without this almost Disney-esque gloss of "all cool primitive things we'll embrace as African."

Cumulatively, however--the poems are terrific. It's not often that I read through an entire volume of poetry without putting it down. Read this book for all its warts and missteps--and glory in it for its terrific human achievement.