If you like therapy sessions, “sexy moon rocks”, and big dream queens
There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker
VIOLETS’ PICKS 016
Where I found it
Beyoncé just kicked off her Renaissance World Tour. And I have a slew of poetry books in piles, some with tabbed pages and some not yet read: on the windowsill next to the bed, on my desk, on the coffee table, on shelves meant for other things. There is one in this pile that I picked up recently, found on Amazon in the “People also like” recommendations while looking up another poetry collection inspired by a musician for Day 2 of Poetry Camp.
Today’s popular music has always borrowed from poetry technique. Bob Dylan, Florence and the Machine, most rappers. Then we have Beyoncé, who brought poetry into her work, collaborating with poet Warsan Shire for her visual album Lemonade.
But that’s not where the Beyoncé and poetry crossover ends. Beyoncé, in fact, is rich source material for many a poet. Like Helen of Troy, she is the voice that has launched (probably) a thousand poems. Including this collection.
First impressions
What is more beautiful than Beyoncé? I really want to know. Not that I don’t believe the statement—beauty is subjective—but what a statement. Bold. Provocative. A bit unsettling.
Also, I really like photography on book covers. I know the monotony of book covers in the publishing industry is, just like almost everything, because “this is what sells” and this is how people know it’s the kind of book they want to read. The thing about poetry books, unlike other genres, is that there doesn’t seem to be a standard. Maybe because no one’s figured out what sells. Maybe because poetry doesn’t sell. Which sounds all kinds of pessimistic except maybe it means poets have a little bit more freedom than other kind of authors, for now.
This image, I found out, is “Portrait of a woman who has fallen from grace and into the hands of evil” by Carrie Mae Weems, photographed in 1987.
They said it
The only thing more beautiful than Beyoncé is God, and God is a black woman sipping rosé and drawing a lavender bath, texting her mom, belly-laughing in the therapist’s office, feeling unloved, being on display, daring to survive. Morgan Parker stands at the interdivs of vulnerability and performance, of desire and disgust, of tragedy and excellence. Unrelentingly feminist, tender, ruthless, and sequined, these poems are an altar to the complexities of black American womanhood in an age of non-indictments and deja vu, and a time of wars over bodies and power. These poems celebrate and mourn. They are a chorus chanting: You’re gonna give us the love we need.
—From the publisher
Lines to remember
Girl you know you ain’t that busy. Without me You’re just two ears stuffed with glitter. —From “Beyoncé on the Line for Gaga”
Dear Sunday you are a rash like tresses falling to shoulders, pink highlights humming the sky like a tease. —From “Beyoncé Is Sorry for What She Won’t Feel”
Watching TV & thinking “White people are crazy” Watching YouTube & thinking “Kanye West is crazy” Looking in the mirror —From “Rebirth of Slick”
I was born this way: unsatisfied My color is a bridge with no other side —From “Rebirth of Slick”
You are alive because you’re a question. —From “The Book of Negroes”
It was like you didn’t have power but were lifted With large strange hands from one day to another —From “Untitled While Listening to Drake”
I don’t know how to explain every wish is an ice cube I swallow whole —From “99 Problems”
You might like this if…
You’ve snagged tickets to the Renaissance World Tour and waiting for Beyoncé to come to your city, you need something to tide you over. You see, ultimately, that the point of good music and good poetry is one and the same. You enjoy insightful commentary on politics, feminism, race, pop culture—and think it might be interesting to find all those things in poems that can be read much more quickly than a long-form essay. You remember the 2000s hitmaker Nelly and wonder what a poem “It’s Getting Hot in Here So Take Off All Your Clothes” is about. You’ll find out.
This was the colour of…
“Dark lipstick and big dreams.” Greys and blacks of questions and dreams not yet in reach, floating through outer space and in bedrooms when you can’t sleep, of “castle and slum” and gunmental. Whatever the colour of glitter is: Nothing, everything?
Details
Year: 2017
Author: Morgan Parker, whose Instagram bio reads “Black Wes Anderson”
Location: Los Angeles
Publisher: Tin House
This week’s find-the-poem game
How to play: Unscramble the excerpt from one of Morgan Parker’s poems below and see if you can find the full poem somewhere on the www. We’ll reveal the poem next Sunday.
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Did you guess it? Last week’s featured poem was “Hummingbirds” by Mary Oliver, published at Poetry Magazine. Click to read the full poem.
You’re reading Violets’ Picks, where every Sunday I take you through an adventure brought to you by a poetry collection. Here’s some other Violets’ Picks this month you may have missed:
What a fun review! I love the end where you describe what color(s) it is. Very poetic indeed! 💗