Fertile Ground

haiku
for Bernice
sonia sanchez

now i move in the
blood of women who polish
pores a cappella.

Book Snapshot: Purple Hibiscus

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

An extraordinary coming-of-age story. Kambili, her brother and their mother have all the luxuries their successful and influential father can provide. In the community he is seen as pious, generous and a voice of the people, but at home he is an explosive, dominant figure who demands complete submission and obedience. Kambili's fear and trauma is palpable. Throughout the text I held my breath and felt her choking. I desperately wished something would give Kambili the courage to stop trying to justify the abuse. The repression and lack of self-worth is disturbing. The dysfunction of the family is so real; it is frightening. This doesn't feel like fiction, it feels like something many of us have known. Stylistically, the writing is stellar. Adichie does get everything right: tone, pacing, characterization and language.

"The novel received the Commonwealth Writers Prize. The “Washington Post Book World” called it, “a breathtaking debut.... .[Adichie] is very much the 21st-century daughter of that other great Igbo novelist, Chinua Achebe.” The “Boston Globe” said, “Adichie’s understanding of a young girl’s heart is so acute that her story ultimately rises above its setting and makes her little part of Nigeria seem as close and vivid as Eudora Welty’s Mississippi.”

What have you read lately?

Potpourri: Literature & Women's Studies

Answer the quiz and your name will be entered in a drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win.

Quiz #23

She went on to get a degree in French from Barnard College and a master's degree in fine arts from Brown University. Her master's thesis became her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, which was published to great acclaim in 1994 and selected by Oprah's Book Club four years later. In 1995 her collection of stories, Krik? Krak!, was enthusiastically received and nominated for a National Book Award.

Who is She?

Potpourri: Literature & Women's History

Answer the quiz and your name will be entered in a drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win. To celebrate National Women's History Month, we will draw a winner each week throughout the month of March.

Quiz #22

In 1976 [fill in] became the first African-American woman to enter the field of neurosurgery as a physician in training. Since then, [ ] has become one of the top specialists in the United States, and her office at Children's Hospital in Detroit has emerged as a leader in pediatric neurosurgery under her watch.

Who is she?

Potpourri: Literature & Women's History

Answer the quiz and your name will be entered in a drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win. To celebrate National Women's History Month, we will draw a winner each week throughout the month of March.

Quiz #21

"[She] was born on September 29, 1950 ...on the tiny island of Grenada in the Caribbean. She completed her primary education and later attended St. Joseph's Convent High School in St. George's, Grenada. [She] attributes most of her writing philosophy to her childhood in Grenada, where she intertwined the concepts of oratorical media with the formal art of writing. With the idea of obtaining a higher education, [she] enrolled at the University of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica, where she later received her Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and in Spanish. After graduating in 1972, she returned to her high school, St. Joseph's Convent, where she taught History and Spanish for the next two years.

Who is she?

March Is National Women's History Month

How about reading and reporting back on works written by women that focus on strong, complex and memorable women?

Tell us what you intend to read. Feel free to share what inspires you to read the work and afterwards tell us what you thought about the work. Don't feel limited to fiction; poetry, plays and non-fiction are solid options as well.

To celebrate, we'll randomly send a work to one of you for sharing your reads with us here. You must list your e-mail address to be eligible. Deadline for promotion ends March 30th. We'll contact the winner via e-mail.

We look forward to reading your responses.

Alice Walker On Barack Obama

Birthday Shout Out!

Rosa Parks (February 14, 1913- October 24, 2005)

“I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people.”

Books by Rosa Parks:

Rosa Parks: My Story
Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope, and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed A Nation

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/parksrosa/p/rosa_parks.htm
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/par0bio-1
http://www.rosaparks.org/

What Needs To Be Said

I've mentioned I've been reading The Cancer Journals before, rather than provide a review, I've decided I really want to invite a dialogue about some of the points she raises.

She writes, "My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you." This is in part about how she will deal with her fears and how she will continue her work despite her cancer. But this isn't just about facing her mortality, it is about how we are silent because of judgment and separation. She continues, "And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives."

Do these ideas speak to you? In what ways? What do you remain silent about? When you write, are you seeking out a community of women? Does your work ever reflect a feminist or political view?