“It's where my imagination is
fecund and I am really at my best. Nothing matters more in the world or in my
body or anywhere when I'm writing. It is dangerous because I'm thinking up
dangerous, difficult things, but it is also extremely safe for me to be in that
place.“ —Toni Morrison
In the summer when I sit at my ephemeral desk looking
out the window I can get a clear view of a magnolia tree. Some early mornings
when I leave the blinds open if I’m awake I catch a glimpse of bold orange-red
hues through the slits for a new start to the day with sensory cues signal
wakefulness at daybreak.
 |
| Magnolia spring blooms remain throughout summer. |
An early morning riser my grandmother with her Southern
roots was once an avid gardener. She believed firmly in planting perennials.
Her exotic plantings were dramatic with strange-shaped leaves of unfamiliar
blooms. In the rich soil I remember playing with worms, snails,
slugs and getting bee stings as there was a hive in the back yard that kept me
curious. When in full bloom there is a fragrant richness in her yard that is
still something to behold. When I was growing up some neighbors would ask
others while others would just help themselves to snippets to plant in their
yards. Snippets come from when you pinch or use a garden tool to
break off a piece of a plant in the right place to regrow in a new
setting.
In a recent NPR interview Toni Morrison talked about losing her lush jade bush that
she’d grown from a snippet when a fire destroyed her family home. She
relishes her life as a snipper. Her storytelling in the interview moved my
unplanned reading of her newest novel God Help the Child, which
imaginatively opens a lucid conversation about race as determined skin color
and culture. In this story unhealed racial childhood wounds infect the life of
Bride. Morrison still writes to teach, her point: "Distinguishing color — light, black, in between — as
the marker for race is really an error: It's socially constructed, it's
culturally enforced and it has some advantages for certain people."
I’m reading from e-books on the 3M Cloud, the Kindle app,
but still find great pleasure in the feel of turning pages especially in my
favorite chair, outdoors or on the beach.
How many books do you read over three months? I also like listening to writers on writing. Morrison continues to use her stories for broader,
meaningful conversations.
As we move through summer here’s my list
of titles on my bookshelf in no order, but there are few themes.
1. Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series by Leah Dickerman and Elsa Smithgall moved to read by the
MoMA One Way exhibit and experience.
2. God
Help The Child by Toni
Morrison whose work I have been reading since The Bluest Eye.
Poetry and stories for such a time this:
3. Native
Guard by Natasha Tretheway
4. Rise by Sarah
Elizabeth Lewis
5. The Light of the World
by Elizabeth Alexander
6. Citizen: An American Lyric
by Claudia Rankine
7. Men We Reaped
by Jesmyn Ward
8. Aimless Love by Billy Collins
New writers and writing from my summer scene including the #blklitchat group:
9. Dear Continuum: Letters to a Poet Crafting
Liberation by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie
10. Everything to Teach Nothing to Learn by Marc Polite
11. BALM: A Novel
by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
12. The Turner House
by Angela Flournoy
13. Staging Migrations Toward an American West: From Ida B.
Wells to Rhodessa Jones by
Marta Effinger-Crichlow and I also just read The Light of the Truth
by Ida B. Wells.
14.
The New Jim Crow: Mass
Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
by Michelle Alexander
15. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
16. Gateway to Freedom by Eric Foner
Selection inspired by family and friends reading:
17. Where the Wild Grapes Grow by Dorothy West her
short stories are among my favorites so I will be reading a new short story and enjoying poems by her cousin Helene Johnson another Harlem Renaissance writer.
From the world of science, medicine and health care:
18. History
of the Present Illness by Louise Aronson
19. The Patient Will See You Now by Eric Topol
20. Being
Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
by Atul Gawande
For many years July has been the month where I am intentional
about reading and writing on my own and in good company. In Literary
Reading, Cognition and Emotion: An Exploration of the Oceanic Mind, a literarly scholar and professor of rhetoric, Dr. Michael
Burke notes:
"When readers sit down in a
comfortable location of their own choosing to read a book, they experience
subconscious echoes of where they came from and what made them. These are
implicit, somatic, affective memory prompts."
Like many I also
find a time just before going to sleep a good time to grab a book. As for writing, hypnagogia the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness moves my creative expression. Early morning writing works for me especially in the
summer.
Black Lives Matter:
The loss of lives among our families, friends and communities has morphed into
collective grief and many are suffering. Anger, rage and outrage must
find new ground. Our stories can help shed light on pain and suffering as we search for relief to work for better days ahead. While I read and write in this climate, I also walk and travel to
reflect and work more effectively each day.
Please share titles from your bookshelf
and reading experiences. Feel free to leave comments.
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