About book Absolute Trust In The Goodness Of The Earth: New Poems (2004)
(1.5 / 5) "--if poems can actually be called writing... From that first volume [of my poetry] to this, what remains the same is the sense that, unlike 'writing,' poetry chooses when it will be expressed, and under what circumstances. Its requirements for existence remain mysterious. In its spontaneous, bare truthfulness, it bears a close relation to song and to prayer."I wish I could properly unscrew my lens and read this book as I might have in middle or high school, where things such as form and heft of abstraction would not have annoyed me to such a large degree. Reading this felt like reading an undergraduate portfolio. Here are a few poems, all centered down the page:Title: "Where Is That Nail File? Where Are My Glasses? Have You Seen My Car Keys?""Nothing is ever lost / It is only / Misplaced / If we look / We can find / It / Again / Human / Kindness."Title: "The Award""Though not / A contest / Life / Is / The award / & we / Have / Won."Title: "We Are All So Busy""We are all so busy. // We say: I am on fire / To see you / But next week / I'll be way / In Boston / & the / Week after that / I have / An important / Meeting / In Kalamazoo. // Ah, Kalamazoo. // A place / I spend / Far / Too much / Time in / Myself."Or these kinds of phrases: "a playful spin on the / spider's web called the internet"And read a brief paragraph introduction to a poem explaining those who jumped from the World Trade Center, as if the simplicity of the poem weren't enough for the reader to intuit the situation. I found myself wondering if my aversion to this form, after seeing it so many times in my students' work, might have been what made me cringe. After all, I loved Alice Walker's prose; it was hugely important to me. What if Walker had played with lineation? Or just made them left justified? What if they were more compact, like haiku?Consider:Title: "Wrinkles""Wrinkles / Invited by Life / Have / Entered / This house. // Someone / New / Is living / In my / Face."It's the sort of slyness I could smile at. I also loved her use of "Matron saint," and I do appreciate her addressing her grounding on the earth and appreciation of women and goddess invocation.
Thank you Alice Walker for restoring my faith in just simply being. I couldn't have picked this up at a better time. It is all Just the wayIt is.SometimesLife seizesUp Nothing stirsNothing flowsWe think:ClimbingThis roughtree&All the timeThe rope looped OverA rottenBranch!We think:Why did I choose This pathAnyway?Nothing at The endBut sheer cliff& rock-filled Sea.We do not knowHave no clueWhat moreMight come.It is the same Though With Earth:Every dayShe makes All she canIt is allShe knows it is allShe can possiblyDo.And then, empty, the onlyTime She is flat, She thinks: I amUsed up. It is winter all the timeNow. Nothing much to do But self-destruct. But then,In the night, inThe darknessWe love so muchShe lies down Like the rest of us To sleep& angels comeAs they do To us& give herFresh dreams.(They are really always the old ones, blooming further.)She rises, rolls over, gives herself a couple of new kinds of grain, a few dozen unusual flowers, a playful spin on the spider's web called the internet. Who knows Where the newness to old lifeComes from?SuddenlyIt appears. Babies are caught by hands they assumed were always waiting. Ink streaksFrom thePenLeft dustyOn The shelf.*This is the true wine of astonishment:We are not Over When we thinkWe are. I loved youSo muchThat whenYou leftIt tookA lotTo keep meAlive.Prayer helped. And givingMyself over To emptiness. Years later I sitOn thisBeach Not far From an old Hawaiian KahunaWho teachesAll and sundryHow to cleanTheir bowels.Don't Hold onTo the OldStuff, flush it outShe saysLeis to herEarsPerched Like a divaOn her bright yellow Porch.I gazeThankfully at the seaTime's most faithfulClockAmazed That every traceOf thatOld painYour leaving Stuffed meWithIs washed Clean.
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In my late teens, I found a poem of Alice Walker’s that resonated with me so strongly that I kept a copy of it on my wall for my entire four years of college.Somehow, in the intervening years, my love of Alice Walker’s poetry slipped from my memory. Indeed, when I picked up this book at the library on a whim, I had totally forgotten that the poem I loved so much in college was even written by Ms. Walker.It wasn’t until I started reading that I fell back in love with Ms. Walker’s lyrical, magical style. There’s something marvelous about finding a forgotten favorite and rediscovering them once again, of realizing your affection hasn’t cooled or become something silly or embarrassing in the intervening years.This is a powerful collection. Some poems stuck with me more than others, and I’d say there were more poems than not that grabbed me with a turn of phrase or a thought. But one thing that surprised me was how the shadow of 9 / 11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (Absolute Trust was published in 2005) hangs over this collection. Reading her poems – remembering my own experiences with those years and how we all seemed to walk around in a haze in the aftermath – I was struck by how long ago all of it feels. And how glad I am the haze is over but that books like Absolute Trust exist to remind us of what was.But the collection is much more than that and worth a read. Highly recommended.
—Lauren
