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Goddess, Warrior, Butterfly Jul 09, 2007
By John Michael Albert
"John-Michael Albert"
There is so much beauty in this book, bought at great price. If you can take "honest," then buy it and savor it; if you can't, then stay the hell away. Joyce uses the principles of rap, especially including rapid-fire delivery peppered with repetition and drive-by rhymes, to elevate slam from featureless confessional narrative to experiential fireworks. Many contemporary poets start with what amounts to a photograph and elaborate their poetry from that image; Joyce starts each poem with a single, focussed emotion, especially including gratitude to those who have both hurt and helped her, and wraps that emotion in complex syntax and showers of polysyllables. She shares her feelings and her beliefs in the casual, matter of fact way, a friend would, if you were dropping in from out of town for a day-long visit: no punches pulled, the facts laid out in their beauty and their gore as she goes through her daily routine, grateful for someone to talk to. I especially appreciate the way she speaks of her poetry in the same way epic heroes speak of their swords and shields, their horses: naming it, praising its genesis, its virtues, its uses as if it were as active a character in her life as her mother, her sisters, her daughter, and her men. This is clearly the work of a woman who, like early Lucille Clifton, goes through a hell of a day, everyday, and once everything is at peace, sits at her kitchen table and writes--in her own voice, a voice she was denied in all of her other daily guises: "Work.poetrrry.love.work.child.maaan. / Some mornings I awake / To make / Breakfast for my man ... Work.child.work.poetrrry.work.child.maaan.dreams.breakfastssss. / Some evenings / I try to write / Away / ... And then I find time / To day dream / I throw myself / Down / A surreal / Wishing well / ... Work.work.dreams.child.maan.me.Ffreedom.Poetrrrry." (from "Life in Abstract") Screw polite. Who has time for polite in the presence of such openness? Go ahead. Read over her shoulder as she works alone at that kitchen table.
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