My partner came in to my home office and gave me this strip of stamps. I had heard Toni Morrison was honored with a stamp and was thrilled. But as I examined the stamp, I realized that this stamp is very appropriate. Toni Morrison is forever.
In honor of Toni Morrison being on a stamp I am reposting this which was written in 2019 when I had seen the movie about her, a few months before her death.
Last night a friend and I went to see the documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am and I loved every minute of it. For as long as I can remember, I have long been inspired by the work of Toni Morrison and was again inspired by the movie as a writer and as a human being.
I am far enough outside the mainstream not to have heard the criticism of the white, male (straight I assume) literary establishment who criticized her and said she did not deserve to win the Nobel Prize. But the comments were, unfortunately, predictable.
I have long considered Morrison America’s greatest living writer and was motivated by the movie to go back and reread her books.
As a writing teacher, I have often quoted Morrison’s statement that revising is the “delicious” part of writing, that the writer goes back and sculpts the hollows that brings forth the characters.
The movie brought me to tears more than once.
I was moved by her discussion on internalized self-hated – that her first book, The Bluest Eye, strongly addresses. As a lesbian writer, I have often written and thought about internalized oppression – the fact of its existence, where it comes from, and how it can be overcome.
I was struck with what she said about white people and racism. She said that racist white people are “bereft” and that by being racist, they are also damaging themselves. She asked the question that what are you without your racism? Are you still strong? And she said that if someone needs to feel better than someone else, they need to process that by themselves – without her.
So, thank you Toni Morrison. I recognize genius when I see it/read it – and am uplifted by your gifts not threatened by them.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
Since this is International Mother Earth Day 2023, I thought I would bring you my piece titled “Swimming Around A Plastic Island” which was recently published by The BeZine magazine in its SustainABILITY issue.
This piece is from my new novel in progress titled Dick Moby which is written from the perspective of a female sperm whale.
It is peaceful swimming with my pod back toward the open sea where things should be safer for us. The saltwater zips around us as we anticipate lunch and swim through beauty. It is magnificent here with the pod tranquilly cutting through the blue sea as we anticipate lunch. We are swimming up to the surface now so we can each take a big breath to prepare for diving down to the depths to catch giant squids. It’s so beautiful being in the pod. I imagine admiring our synchronicity from above. Our swimming strokes are exactly matched. We look as graceful as we are. For a moment I feel so much a part of the group—as if the other whales are attached to me–that I almost forget I am a separate whale with my own thoughts and opinions.
A wave blocks my blowhole momentarily reminding me there are threats everywhere and that I must be vigilant. But it was so peaceful when I felt as one with my pod. If it wasn’t for the terrifying but true story Grandmother told me and, let’s face it, that depressing novel that I found in the ocean and put in my large brain, I could easily overlook the fact that I must remain on the alert. I remind myself that although I may not have told the pod, my secret name is Dick Moby, and I am fierce enough to handle anything.
We swim on some more in the pristine blue water, before I start to hear excited clicking and commotion in the pod.
“We are taking a detour. Something must have happened up ahead,” clicks my young cousin. She dropped back a bit after swimming upside down but has nosed her way up. I heard her saying “Excuse me, excuse me, I have to get to the front,” earlier as we swam.
Before you know it, she’ll be right behind my Great Aunt who always leads the pod.
I am so mad at my young cousin for skipping ahead, that for the moment I ignore the other clicks around me.
Then I decide to change my mind.
What do I care? I ask myself. So, my young cousin is pushing her way to the front. It shouldn’t bother me since I am not comfortable with being in charge and have never made that my goal.
One of these days, my young cousin will tell me what to do and I’ll either go ahead and do it or not–depending on what kind of mood that I’m in.
I reflect that bossy people are rarely happy even when they are in their element and telling others what to do.
I’ve seen my Great Aunt being bossy—almost all the time. But I have never seen her happy, except for the time earlier today when she was communing with the Human who was among the pod in the water. Maybe that is why she wanted to take us to find the Humans–even if it meant that we might be beached–after the Human left. Her experience was so good that she wanted to recreate it.
I keep swimming—gently parting the water with my pod—and thinking how nice that it was that we saw the kelp forest and the sea meadow where I imagine a Seahorse lived. Maybe it is the life growing inside of me, but I do feel more peaceful than usual. I haven’t told my pod yet that I am with calf because they will make too much of a commotion. Besides, I think telling them—since it is still early—may be bad luck.
Then a wave smacks me alongside my head which is halfway exposed above the water line so that I can breathe freely. The slap of the wave jolts me into paying attention to what is happening in the present moment. I listen to the clicks of my pod members who are chatting excitedly.
“We are making a wide circle around an island,” explains one of my sisters who is now swimming next to me.
“It’s not just any island,” clicks a whale, whose voice pattern I don’t recognize, on the other side of her. “It’s a Human-made Island, and it doesn’t have any sand or dirt.”
“I’ve heard of these islands,” replies my sister. “They’re all over the place and they are made entirely of plastic bottles and nylon fishing nets and other things. In fact, they are made entirely of plastic—which I hear never goes away.”
Marine debris in Hawaii as seen from below. (Source)
“I’ve heard that some of the seabirds mistake the plastic for small fish because it’s shiny and eat what they can. Then they get sick and die,” clicks the other whale.
“That’s right, and some of the whales eat the plastic too, my sister responds. “They seem to especially like the nylon fishing nets that are everywhere these days. Maybe the whales mistake them for squid. Then the whales die and sink to the depths where they decay and are eaten by sharks, or they are washed ashore.”
“That’s awful,” I grumble. “So, what do you think of your darling Humans now?”
“What!?” the whale on the other side of my sister clicks back. “I didn’t even see you there. I guess you heard what we were talking about?”
“Of course,” I say. “The plastic island sounds awful. I was out swimming earlier and when I came back the pod was communing around a Human diver. I was just wondering what you think of Humans now that we are forced to go around the plastic island that was caused by their bad behavior.”
I am holding back. I didn’t tell my sister what I think of Humans. She may have inferred that I would never trust them, but I didn’t say that. I just asked her what she thought. It was an honest question.
She is quiet for a moment. Then she begins clicking.
“I was in the pod when we were communing around the human,” she says pointedly. “You don’t have to tell me what you saw because I was there. We don’t know that it’s the Human’s fault—the one who came to visit us. Maybe some of the Humans are upset about the plastic islands, too. Maybe they are sad when we wash up on the beaches with plastic inside of us. Maybe the plastic is bad for them also.”
A father and son on a makeshift boat paddle through garbage as they collect plastic bottles that they can sell in junkshops in Manila, Philippines. (Source).
My jaw drops. I had asked her what she thought of the Humans. I didn’t tell her what I thought based on Grandmother’s stories and that thick book in my head. My sister had never wanted to hear Grandmother’s stories. Even when she was a calf, she’d get a look on her face and swim away. I, on the other hand, would stay with Grandmother and happily listen to her stories over and again.
Now, I see the results of my sister not listening to the story of our late Great Aunt (another Great Aunt from the one who is living) who had wanted to see her calf again, so she rammed the boat and the ship of those who tried to destroy her with their harpoons.
My sister had an entirely different take on Humans than I did. Not only did she like them, she also had no problem giving them the benefit of the doubt in saying essentially that Humans are not all alike. I know that not all Humans are our enemies. I know that some worship us and I’ve heard that some help us. But it’s complicated because we often need help since the Humans created the conditions that are making us suffer.
For instance, it’s the Humans who leave their nylon fishing nets around in the first place and that’s why we are at their mercy. And the Humans bring the ships to the area that make the loud noises that end up being so frightening to us that we swim away often to dangerously shallow waters and sometimes get beached and die. I know it’s the stories of the bad Human behavior in my head and in the past that make me wary of Humans.
That’s why when I saw my pod trusting a Human, I became extra skeptical.
But now I am forced to reconsider. Maybe some Humans aren’t all that bad.
My sister had spoken thoughtfully and eloquently. She was sure of what she said, and she left me speechless. I don’t know what to click in reply.
So, I swim ahead a little bit to where there is an opening and squint my left eye so I can see better. The island of plastic stretched on forever and was less than seventy-five feet away. That would only be about two lengths if I turned forward and swam straight toward the island. Of course, I wasn’t going to do that. For one thing, I had no intention of washing up on a beach with a belly full of plastic. I also didn’t know how deep and wide the island was, and I did not plan on suffocating because I could not come up for air.
As we swam past the island, we were on the surface. My sister and the other whales around me were silent. We gazed at the plastic island as if we were seeing a premonition of the future when all the sea might be filled with plastic debris. Even my young cousin was silent. This was her future. I couldn’t see her eyes since she was ahead of me. But I imagined a single tear sliding out of her eye.
The island stretched on and on as far as my eye could see. We would be swimming around it for a long time before we would feel free enough in the open sea to dive down deep and catch lunch. As I stared at it, I saw the plastic island glittering under the sun. If I didn’t know that it represented death, I might think it was beautiful.
I could see how a bird could mistake the plastic for a fish and eat the wrong thing. After all, the sun glitters on fish jumping out of the waves too.
It is my pleasure to bring you this review of My Good Son by Yang Huang. The book is very thought provoking and stayed with me
The review is below where I have posted the #BookTube video and below that is the text.
When I first heard about the novel My Good Son by Yang Huang (from University of New Orleans Press), I was intrigued. Initially, my curiosity was piqued because of the gay character. But what I found was that the novel was deeply layered starting with the strong Chinese culture that the narrator is rooted in. It is a complicated tale of a simple subject: of the strong love of a parent for a child, in this case a father and his young adult son, and the sacrifices that the parent makes for that child. In the book, an American who is the son’s age enters the picture and teaches the Chinese father a few things. In return, the Chinese father helps the young American come out to his own father.
The novel has a complicated subplot that I won’t go into, but I will say that the book held my interest. The Chinese son comes off as rather spoiled, but he is his father’s only child. The father, who is a tailor, wants the son to do better than him. He wants his son to go to college, an ambition that the father once had when he was young. I found the backdrop of the culture in China (quite different than my experience of growing up as a lesbian in the United States) to be compelling and relatable.
When the young American gay friend enters the picture, the Chinese father sees an opportunity for the American man’s father to help his son go to college in America, but this is contingent upon the Chinese father helping the young American reunite with and come out to his own father.
When the two fathers meet, the young American man translates a question for the Chinese father:
“Do you think that living in China made me gay?”
….
“No!” he exclaimed. “Your son came to China to be gay. China is not a gay nation.”
…. “In China, foreigners don’t have as much pressure as they do at home. People in Yanzhou rarely talk to foreigners, few of whom speak Chinese. Since we keep a respectful distance, Jude might feel more comfortable living here as a gay man.”
I found My Good Son by Yang Huang (from University of New Orleans Press), to be a quietly insightful, engaging, and complex novel. I found that it made me think more about my own experiences and that the complexity stayed with me.
This is Janet Mason with reviews for Book Tube.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
It is my pleasure to bring you this review of Patti Smith’s A Book of Days. It happens to be Easter Sunday when I am posting this and it is also April which is National Poetry Month and it occurs to me that this is appropriate because Patti approaches the subjects in the book, including and especially the graves of many poets, with reverence.
The review is below where I have posted the #BookTube video and below that is the text.
Long a fan of the rock and roller and esteemed writer Patti Smith, I knew I’d love her newest A Book of Days (2022, Random House), but I didn’t know just how much I’d love it. A Book of Days is a daybook of sorts in which the reader meditates and reflects on her own life as well as the photographs that Patti presents to us for the days of a year and then one more joyous one reminding us to rejoice because “We are all alive together.”
Reading the book — looking at each photograph and reading each caption – left me pondering the connections between poetry, photography, and music because clearly, they exist. Perhaps it comes down to the detail. Smith used to chronicle her life with photographs from an old polaroid camera but then the film stopped being manufactured. With the help of her daughter, she began an Instagram account on which this book is based. The photographs in this book differ from those on her Instagram account but are in the same square format. Much of the book was compiled during the 2020 pandemic.
Many of the photographs in this book are of the graves of dead poets who are so important to Smith that they seem to be living, in that they are still a presence. Most of the final resting places of the poets she reveres so much are in Europe. But one photograph, in Camden, New Jersey, in the U.S., is a long black and white shot of her daughter reading Leaves of Grass (a poetry collection of the American poet) outside the tomb of Walt Whitman, the light coming through the trees behind the stone house that is his grave.
The book also includes a photograph of a portrait of the mystic poet Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, whom Smith describes as a Mexican philosopher, composer, poet, proto-feminist, and nun.
Reading A Book of Days by Patti Smith (2022, Random House) greatly enriched my life and I plan to keep it handy so I can pick it up when I need inspiration.
This is Janet Mason with reviews for Book Tube.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
As part of a Unitarian Universalist service focusing on women’s history month, I revisited the work of Audre Lorde in her book Sister Outsider, Essays and Speeches, first published by The Crossing Press in 1984.
It is also Nation Poetry Month and I wanted to bring you review of a book written by the important poet Audre Lorde that was so important to me when I was a young poet.
The review is on Book Tube and below the video is the text.
Recently, I reread Sister Outsider, essays and speeches by the important and often quoted poet, Audre Lorde. Sister Outsider was first published in 1984 by The Crossing Press.
Lorde was born in 1934 and died in 1992, having been cut down by breast cancer in the prime of her life.
I was fortunate to hear the poet Audre Lorde speak and read several times when I was in my twenties. Lorde was an important figure to me when I was a budding writer and a young adult looking inward and outward and making sense of life.
It was interesting to re-read this book which I had last read close to the date of publication and to see the places where I had highlighted Lorde’s words.
In this collection of writing, Lorde writes about the importance of speaking your truth, of being all parts of yourself, accepting difference, knowing yourself, and being unafraid to feel. Since so much has changed since she died, I found myself wondering what she would say about the mess we are in now.
And there in her essay, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex” is a clue to what she would say and did say as she foresaw the future. In prose, she writes: “Change means growth, and growth can be painful.”
Then she includes “Outlines,” an unpublished poem:
We have chosen each other
and the edge of each other’s battles
the war is the same
if we lose
someday women’s blood will congeal
upon a dead planet
if we win
there is no telling
we seek beyond history
for a new and more possible meeting.
Rereading Sister Outsider, essays and speeches by the important poet Audre Lorde first published in 1984 by The Crossing Press reminded me of who we can be.
This is Janet Mason with reviews for Spotify and Book Tube.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
Janet Mason, author 