Product Description

In this exquisite book, Alice Walker’s first new collection of poetry since 1991, are poems that reaffirm her as “one of the best American writers of today” (The Washington Post). The forces of nature and the strength of the human spirit inspire the poems in Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth. Alice Walker opens us to feeling and understanding, with poems that cover a broad spectrum of emotions. With profound artistry, Walker searches for, discovers, and declares the
fundamental beauty of existence, as she explores what it means to experience life fully, to learn from it, and to grow both as an individual and as part of a greater spiritual community.

About Walker’s Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful, America said, “In the tradition of Whitman, Walker sings, celebrates and agonizes over the ordinary vicissitudes that link and separate all of humankind,” and the same can be said about this astonishing new collection, Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #449984 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-09
• Released on: 2004-03-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
"You/ are/ the sister/ The big/ Sister/ As hero," Alice Walker writes near the beginning of her sixth volume of poems: "The one who sees/ The one who listens/ The one who guides/ Teaches/ & protects." Some of Walker's fans may feel this way about the author herself, whose decades of literary production and political activism include several bestselling novels, one Pulitzer for The Color Purple, influential essays about social change (most recently, Sent by Earth) and other much-acknowledged work in gender studies and African-American letters. Walker's poems have long been her warmest, least artful utterances, invoking the solidarity and the compassion she invites her readers to feel: this thick book of short-lined poems extends those goals, exploring and praising friendship, romantic love, home cooking, the peace movement, ancestors, ethnic diversity and particularly admirable strong women, among them the primatologist Jane Goodall. Some poems address topics of recent vintage, such as post-9/11 discrimination ("If you/ Want to show/ Your love/ For America// Smile/ When you see/ His/ Turban/ Rosepink"). Other work continues Walker's longer-term spiritual and ecological interests: the poet (who subtitled her 1990 collection Earthling Poems) now writes "Divine Mother/ Keep on praying/ For us/ All Earthlings/ All children/ Of this awesome place/ Not one of us/ Knowing/ Why we're here/ Except to Be." Though critics' interest in Walker will continue to concentrate on her prose, the readers across the country who cherished Walker's earlier poems will find in this new work exactly what they've awaited.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
For Alice Walker, there are no dividing lines between the personal, the political, and the artistic, and, consequently, her novels, essays, and poetry swing from sweet modes of intimacy to blunt polemics to confessional therapy to revelation. In her introduction to her sixth volume of poetry, Walker confides that she had thought she might not write anymore, but that changed after September 11, and she found herself writing these mystic prayers and heartfelt yet lithe and airy recollections of dreams and tributes to plants, animals, and compassionate people. Although some verge on triteness, most achieve a radiant simplicity, and all are sincere in their celebrations of nature and love, and protests against war, conquest, and more private forms of cruelty. Graceful in their spirituality, openness to experience, and rueful humor, Walker's poems revolve around love and gratitude for the earth. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Praise for Alice Walker?s poetry

?A sensitive, spirited, and intelligent poet. Feeling is channeled into a style that is direct and sharp....Wit and tenderness combine into humanity.?
?Poetry, about Once

?In these poems there?s the power of a mind?s concentrated passion....Walker?s language moves among griefs, loves, hopes....There?s a compassion in the poems that is not only painfully earned but has, each time, to be earned over again?and it is this that gives it its authenticity.?
?Denise Levertov, author of Life in the Forest, About Good Night, Willie Lee, and I?ll See You in the Morning

?[Alice Walker] is exceptionally brave: She takes on subjects at which most writers would flinch and quail, and probably fail. She shrinks from no moral or emotional complexity....In Walker?s work nothing is ordinary....She is a marvelous writer.?
?San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle, about You Can?t Keep a Good Woman Down

?Graceful in their spirituality, openness to experience, and rueful humor, Walker?s poems revolve around love and gratitude for the earth.?
?Booklist

?The overall effect is that of listening to a wise woman?the ?apprentice elder?... whose gift to us is a vision of wholeness and delight in the world.?
?Cleveland Plain Dealer -- Review

Customer Reviews

Poems for the Soul
I saw Ms. Walker read poems from this book last night in Los Angeles. She spoke of how she thought she was done with writing and then the poetry started one day. She described the return to poetry as a "spring" beginning to flow again. Anyone involved in creative pursuits, such as writing poetry, can surely relate to the "spring" metaphor. These poems are simply beautiful and seem effortless as you read them. They seem to come from a vast, open space. Reading the poetry engages the reader in a celebration of life, the spirit, and hope for humanity. Highly recommended!

The color blue
Alice Walker seems to love the color blue. I didn't count how often, but blue is woven in and out of the poems. It is like there is a blue ribbon of healing words sent out to the reader.

The poems weave a tale of the wonder of life and send out a call for the end of war and mistreatment of each other. Alice Walker sets an example of thanking and honoring friends for being who they are.

The poems in this book dusts off the reader and sets him/her off to do the work that needs to be done.

"This is the true wine of astonishment:
We are not
Over
When we think
We are."

A Breath Of Fresh Air!
Alice Walker's poetry transcends the egocentric concerns of the over-privileged conflict seeking few and reaches for a far loftier goal. Ms. Walker states this goal in the simple truth that in order to have peace we must at first be at peace with ourselfs. A fact that eludes so many of our world "leaders". Her poem on pg.179 "Dreaming the New World in Careyes" is the focal point (in my opinion) of this book, and a microcosm of the world today. I believe many people will certainly relate to the topic as they read it. At the conclusion of her poem Ms. Walker writes "Unhappy, but determined to disrupt the dream of peace". This sentence has become painfully relevant today. Ms. Walker's poetry is sensitive and insightful and in todays world speaks volumes above the din of war. For me her writings have become a breath of fresh air among alot of war-mongering halitosis.