Product Description

n the tradition of Alice Walker, an electrifying new African American voice delivers the verdict on the urban condition in a sensual, propulsive, and prophetic book of poetry and prose. "Stunning . . . . One of the strongest debut collections of the '90s."--Publishers Weekly.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8119 in Books
• Published on: 1996-06-18
• Released on: 1996-06-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In one of the strongest debut collections of the 90s, this black lesbian feminist presents a fusion of poetry and prose, interspersed with short stories. Not for the squeamish, Sapphire's imagery is so fierce that readers will want to spread out the book over several sittings. Accounts of a young girl's rape by her father frame and inform all else, but Sapphire draws in irony as a buffer: in one extremely vivid poem, familiar phrases from the Mickey Mouse Club alternate with memories of assault. Early in her career, this writer felt the need to tell the stories of all victims (Tawana Brawley, the Central Park jogger, a nameless woman she meets on the bus), but to accomplish this she must adopt their emotional horrors as her own. "Now that you know, / you can begin / to heal," the first poem ends. It is this commitment to human sensitivity that makes the terrifying exploits described here palatable. It also permits the narrator, 80 pages later, to describe the grief she feels at her mother's deathbed. Perfectly paced, sidestepping explication, Sapphire's words provide pointers to her characters' dramas, but she's still capable of stunning readers with a final image.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
These riveting vignettes--some are poems, others short prose works--offer a real voice speaking on topics too often distorted by media hype: sexual abuse, prostitution, racial and sexual violence, lesbian love, and mother-daughter relations. In spite of a tendency toward cliche, the confessional pieces included here are painful and affecting; their explicit, sordid detail is utterly convincing, and the author's intelligence allows her to generalize beyond personal anger and pain. Dramatizations of such public events as the Central Park wilding incident and the Los Angeles shooting of a black teenager by a Korean American grocer, however, seem merely descriptive and sensational. This is volatile stuff, and not all of it works, but the pieces that do, go over with a bang. Recommended.
- Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
These verse and prose dreams are nightmare screams in the dark, roars of outrage at racism, sexism, institutionalized poverty, and child sexual abuse--roars illuminated, however, by sudden flares of humor: "John Wayne . . . is clandestinely slipping into the wax museum to suck Michael Jackson's dick only to find he has had his penis surgically reconstructed to look like Diana Ross' face." Sapphire's stomach-turning recollections of brutal sexual abuse by her father intermingle with clinical notes from the autopsy of a man beaten to death, a daughter's betrayal of her mother with the mother's lover, prison lovers yearning for a glimpse of the moon. These harsh but sometimes beautiful pieces may be seen as barbaric yawp howled Ginsberg-like into the wind, but their words and the images they evoke are hard to dismiss. Whitney Scott

Customer Reviews

heart-wrenching, stomach-turning, life-changing
possibly one of the most powerful and moving books i've ever read. this was given to me as a gift by a friend who assured me it would change my life. it made me cry, laugh, get angry, grow stronger. incredibly poetic - it will hit you hard.

The most depressing collection I've ever read
OMG This was the most depressing book I have ever read! I understand Sapphire's goal, and I'm not knocking it at all. It's well written and put together. All the poems are properly sequenced and they VIVIDLY tell the story of the abuse in homes across the world. You could easily insert any girl into the shoes of the characters portrayed in American Dreams. It's a sad reality that Sapphire has opened the world up to. I applaud her, but I felt bombarded by the images she depicted. Maybe that was her goal. If so, she succeeded. Im thoroughly disgusted. I could look at my boyfriend without disgust for a whole week after reading this book!
After reading American Dreams I couldnt look at any man without wondering if he had, or would ever sexually abuse a child.

powerful
sapphire's collection of poems and short stories is a powerful collection, though the poems are much more so than her short fiction. they are intense personal experiences and by the time you finish the collection, you have a good idea of what happened to her during her life. it would be interesting to read work by her that does not relate to racial bigotry, abuse or lesbianism, but that seems to be where she is able to draw the raw energy that she writes with.