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lauren_endnotes's review against another edition
5.0
"I cannot crawl into the tombs and cannot explain why. How do you say in my country they buried me alive for six months?...
Rabab tells me: We know how to build graves here. I nod. I know. It is the same all over Africa."
~From "Hanging in Egypt with Breyten Breytenbach"
In this collection, Abani notes his travels, poetic observations in towns as different as Harare, Zimbabwe to Walcott, Massachusetts, US. Part II of the book, "Buffalo Women", is a fictional account of two lovers' and their letter correspondence during the Civil War. It was a fantastic piece that challenges what we think we know about historical events.
Rabab tells me: We know how to build graves here. I nod. I know. It is the same all over Africa."
~From "Hanging in Egypt with Breyten Breytenbach"
In this collection, Abani notes his travels, poetic observations in towns as different as Harare, Zimbabwe to Walcott, Massachusetts, US. Part II of the book, "Buffalo Women", is a fictional account of two lovers' and their letter correspondence during the Civil War. It was a fantastic piece that challenges what we think we know about historical events.
seebrandyread's review against another edition
5.0
Chris Abani started writing works of protest at a very young age. As a result, he was forced to flee his native Nigeria and eventually settle in the US. Hands Washing Water captures much of the refugee spirit of finding identity in many places, struggling to hold on to one's origins across time and distance, and to make peace or at least some sense of the conflicted world around them. But this is only one facet of this innovative and surprising collection. Albani kept me on my toes to adjust to his frequent changes in style and tone that make each poem a new experience.
The first section is fairly tightly centered on place. Most of these poems are titled and written about a specific location. Many of these locations have the common thread of being built with slave labor and/or still bearing the marks of racial divides. Though they may culturally diverse, this chorus of voices can distract from or drown out a seedier past (looking at you, America). Stone and brick imagery begins in this section and continues to ask what constitutes one of these building blocks and what kind of foundation do they build?
The second section had me riveted. Combining historic fact and precedence, Albani wrote an exchange of love letters in verse between Jane, a white Southern woman, and Henrietta (Henri) an emancipated slave who has disguised herself as a man to fight in the Union Army. Part of me balked a bit at the focus on menstruation in some of the poems though I could see the merit of the symbolism of blood alongside the images of battle. Plus, I read an article about how, as a child, Albani traveled with his mother around Nigeria to translate for her as she taught women about birth control. I now want a full length book about Henri and Jane (though maybe not by a straight man) as well as one about Abani's mother. (He did write a novella in verse about her called Daphne's Lot.)
The final section of the book is mainly about language (a critical building block itself). Most of these poems are for and/or about other writers, artists, etc. in conversation with their work and lives. Repetition of words and phrases, the occasional appearance of the Igbo language, and empty space, are a few markers that give the poems rhythm and a flair for the unexpected. One poem consists of a colon and a semi colon in homage to a contemporary composer. As the first section asks what we build our cities with, the third asks what we build our language with, and, once built, how do we use it?
The first section is fairly tightly centered on place. Most of these poems are titled and written about a specific location. Many of these locations have the common thread of being built with slave labor and/or still bearing the marks of racial divides. Though they may culturally diverse, this chorus of voices can distract from or drown out a seedier past (looking at you, America). Stone and brick imagery begins in this section and continues to ask what constitutes one of these building blocks and what kind of foundation do they build?
The second section had me riveted. Combining historic fact and precedence, Albani wrote an exchange of love letters in verse between Jane, a white Southern woman, and Henrietta (Henri) an emancipated slave who has disguised herself as a man to fight in the Union Army. Part of me balked a bit at the focus on menstruation in some of the poems though I could see the merit of the symbolism of blood alongside the images of battle. Plus, I read an article about how, as a child, Albani traveled with his mother around Nigeria to translate for her as she taught women about birth control. I now want a full length book about Henri and Jane (though maybe not by a straight man) as well as one about Abani's mother. (He did write a novella in verse about her called Daphne's Lot.)
The final section of the book is mainly about language (a critical building block itself). Most of these poems are for and/or about other writers, artists, etc. in conversation with their work and lives. Repetition of words and phrases, the occasional appearance of the Igbo language, and empty space, are a few markers that give the poems rhythm and a flair for the unexpected. One poem consists of a colon and a semi colon in homage to a contemporary composer. As the first section asks what we build our cities with, the third asks what we build our language with, and, once built, how do we use it?
savaging's review
3.0
The fault is probably my skull, but this collection of poetry didn't make much of a mark on my brain. It's well worth reading for this one poem, though:
THE NEW RELIGION
The body is a nation I have not known.
The pure joy of air: the moment between leaping
from a cliff into the wall of blue below. Like that.
Or to feel the rub of tired lungs against skin-
covered bone, like a hand against the rough of bark.
Like that. "The body is a savage," I said.
For years I said that: the body is a savage.
As if this safety of the mind were virtue
not cowardice. For years I have snubbed
the dark rub of it, said, "I am better, Lord,
I am better," but sometimes, in an unguarded
moment of sun, I remember the cowdung-scent
of my childhood skin thick with dirt and sweat
and the screaming grass.
But this distance I keep is not divine,
for what was Christ if not God's desire
to smell his own armpit? And when I
see him, I know he will smile,
fingers glued to his nose, and say, "Next time
I will send you down as a dog
to taste this pure hunger."
THE NEW RELIGION
The body is a nation I have not known.
The pure joy of air: the moment between leaping
from a cliff into the wall of blue below. Like that.
Or to feel the rub of tired lungs against skin-
covered bone, like a hand against the rough of bark.
Like that. "The body is a savage," I said.
For years I said that: the body is a savage.
As if this safety of the mind were virtue
not cowardice. For years I have snubbed
the dark rub of it, said, "I am better, Lord,
I am better," but sometimes, in an unguarded
moment of sun, I remember the cowdung-scent
of my childhood skin thick with dirt and sweat
and the screaming grass.
But this distance I keep is not divine,
for what was Christ if not God's desire
to smell his own armpit? And when I
see him, I know he will smile,
fingers glued to his nose, and say, "Next time
I will send you down as a dog
to taste this pure hunger."
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