The Breakbeat Poets, Vol. 3: Halal If You Hear ME

Edited by Fatimah Asghar & Safia Elhillo

This anthology reinforces a high bar (established by the first two BreakBeats collections) for exploring a style, a people, and a culture while revealing how far from monolithic a perspective can be. The back cover notes the anthology includes writing “by Muslims who are women, queer, genderqueer, nonbinary, and/or trans” and the writing feels not just by this community of poets but also feels for readers who may be similarly represented. I am outside each of these identities and at times I felt a bit like an intruder, but I think it is important that I experience these feelings in my reading choices. I loved the poetry within, the honesty and joy and pain and understanding and confusion; I loved the language of the writing that captured places and feelings with robust or restrained word choices; I loved the commentation on big social, cultural, and political issues and the exploration of the everyday and familiar.

This book will live…

In my library

I look forward to students finding and exploring it. While there is material for some that may deal too honestly with religion, gender, and sexual identities, students intending to explore AP Lit (or who just enjoy poetry) will be rewarded by giving it a read.

I dog-eared a couple dozen of my favorites. There are some that capture the ordinary: Warsan Shire’s “Nail Technician as Palm Reader,” Hazem Fahmy’s “Clubbing w/ Hamed Sinno,” and Aisha Sharif’s “Hot Combs and Hijabs.” I found many that made me laugh, including “Ode to Swearing” by Safia Elhillo and Noor Ibn Najam’s “Hypothesis: Bitch Face.” Some poems explore girlhood (especially girlhood in America) that, as a father to two girls, makes me consider them and the world they are in, but these and others leave me reflecting on my relationship with my country as well; poets writing from experiences with America and Americans (some as citizens here while others have international contact with culture or conflict) remind me of my experience as a teenager after September 11th. I recall the nonsensical fear of Muslims that seemed to be everywhere, but my consideration then was for the absurdity of that fear. While I was inwardly critical of Americans that were hateful toward ordinary people, I hadn’t then considered the actual experience of so many people that were receiving mistreatment because of their physical features or their dress. Aisha Sharif’s “Accent” and Sahar Romani’s “Burden of Proof” are among those that return me to this period.

I am also struck by the complex relationship these poets have with their faith and themselves. I am not religious myself, so learning about the religious traditions of others is an opportunity, especially for a community that receives the flattest, most prejudicial depiction in media. There are poems and a few essays here that explore the tensions and comforts that come with being part of a complex religious tradition, especially as these authors explore their sense of gender and sexual identities. I was cognizant while reading that I’ve never had to have the same considerations regarding my own identity or place. I appreciate the opportunity to see from these many windows, even if I know that they are not made with me in mind.

The Essential Kerner Commission Report

Edited by Jelani Cobb

The mid-20th century Civil Rights movement was a contentious time in America. Black Americans were demanding equal treatment in political, public, and private spaces. Protests, Freedom Rides, Sit-Ins, and the rise of captivating speakers made headlines in newspapers. And then, in the middle of the ’60s, riots in dozens of America’s ghetto neighborhoods erupted. Hundreds were killed, tens of thousands were injured and arrested; in most cases, these were Black Americans. The Kerner Commission Report was produced at the command of President Lyndon B. Johnson who wanted the answer to three questions: What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again?

This book will live…

At Home

Although I’d love to see it in the hands of students, I do not expect it to get much attention if it were present in the library. I do have other materials that students can use to explore America’s history of racial inequity (1619 Project; Stamped From the Beginning; The Fire Next Time among them), and there are fiction novels that explore these experiences with engaging protagonists — each more likely to hold students’ attention than a government document.

This edition of the report has an introduction and afterward by Jelani Cobb. It is also cleaned up a bit to make the reading a bit easier, but this is minimal; the initial report, though not intended as a document for public dissemination, is very clear and direct. Reading the report reveals as much about America in the 1960s as it does about America before and America after. The causes of these riots have not been resolved. The circumstances of Black Americans today reflect those of nearly 60 years ago and the recommendations for change are familiar to anyone who closely followed the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests.

I do think this is an essential reading for Americans. Uncomfortable truths like those within this report are necessary if we are to be the country we so often celebrate, one that is equitable, fair, and free. The commission itself likely struggled with the production of this report and I’d be curious to read a narrative account of the research. The members of the commission were varied, with some coming into the project with existing prejudices and ignorances. That they would arrive at conclusions that were so direct in addressing white supremacy, police misconduct, and systemic abuse —and that they would do so so long ago! — is kind of mind-blowing.

All the Flowers Kneeling

Paul Tran

Tran’s collection explores the intersection of masculine, feminine, and Asian identities, with many honest discussions of the abuse they and their family suffered under their father. There are three excellent ekphrastic poems — “The Nightmare: Oil on Canvas: Henry Fuseli:,” “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus: Oil on Canvas: Pieter Bruegel the Elder:,” and “Judith Slaying Holofernes: Oil on Canvas: Artemisia Gentilischi” — and reading them with the referenced work on a screen was simultaneously familiarizing and othering. Ekphrastic poems are poems in response to or about works of art, and these are all standards in any Art 101 course. As a result, there are references and details that bring me back to studying these works myself. At the same time, Tran’s exploration links the subjects and the production of the works with their own personal experience. Landscape with the Fall of Icarus makes its subject — Icarus — a minor character in the lives of many other individuals going about their day; in Tran’s poem, the abuse their father subjected them to makes Tran the Icarus figure, whose tragedy is relegated to the background of the ordinary, undisturbed lives of the people around them. The other two artworks are more threatening, malevolent, and even directly violent. The poems that accompany them here are disturbing and profoundly affecting.

This book will live…

In My Library

The book’s frank exploration of violence (especially familiar, sexual violence) is pretty challenging, but texts referenced by Collegeboard for use with Q3 include these very subjects. The collection is constantly developing complex relationships between self, family, and society; consistently identifying tensions between private and public spaces, personal and public knowledge. This is probably not a collection I would recommend for younger students or those sensitive about issues of abuse, but there is much here that can prepare my AP Lit seniors to work through complex poetic texts.

This is not just a collection about trauma, but more than anything about learning and knowledge and understanding that trauma (even if it hurts): the opening poem “Orchard of Knowing” makes this abundantly clear. Poems that explore the transformation and complex relationship of bodies to other bodies (or their own) — “Bioluminescence,” and “Endosymbiosis” — relate a complex relationship that feels grounded in Tran’s experience as a trans person. The three “Scientific Method” poems reference Latin terms for a seminal work of scientific literature (Of the Structure of the Human Body, Andreas Vesalius, 1543), a plant (the Shameplant), and an animal (the rhesus macaque), each recontextualized in the context of the abuse Tran has suffered. While the earthly sciences seem often connected with pain in the collection, when Tran looks to the stars in “I See Not Stars But Their Light Reaching Across the Distance Between Us” and again in “Galileo” and “Copernicus,” there is more room for hope and play. “Copernicus” is, unquestioningly, my favorite of the collection. It showed up a couple years ago in The New Yorker and I immediately annotated all over my magazine when I read it. I’ve since shared it with other teachers and with students in my AP Lit course. I adore the poem.

There are poems in the collection that I struggled to find a way into and failed, while others rewarded me with the effort of repeated readings. Most were so open and honest that it was not hard not to appreciate how effective and affecting they were, even if they sometimes provoked me to look away.

The Deep

Rivers Solomon (with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes)

During the transatlantic slave trade, the bodies of millions of trafficked Africans were thrown into the oceans to be consumed by sharks who were so conditioned to the discarding of Black bodies into the sea that they would follow slave ships expecting a free meal. The Deep imagines that these desecrated bodies birthed a species called the wajinru after entering the water. These finned creatures — whose appearance is similar to fish — build community and culture deep in the ocean, and a tradition of retaining and sharing memory is formed. For these people, the collective history of their kind is rich but also deeply traumatic, so to safeguard the community against this hurt, a single Historian retains the entire history of every wajinru that has ever lived, as well as anything that they have ever learned or experienced.

This book will Live…

In my Library

In fact, it has already been checked out and returned. At less than 200 pages, it is a quick read. Despite dealing with serious trauma, the novel is beautifully written, the characters are endearing, and the plot, though simple, is effective and propelling. Additionally, this novel is a great piece of Afrofuturism that places the African Slave Trade from within an African perspective, rather than a white one. This is an essential addition to the library.

The Deep follows Yetu during the time of The Rememberence, the annual sharing of these memories of the Historian’s community. For a period of days, the community receives and lives within these memories, sharing the pains and joys and successes and failures of their entire species. During this time, the Historian is relieved of this heavy burden. For Yetu, the History weighs so heavily to her sensitive soul that she feels as though she is being destroyed by it. Yetu is a supremely sympathetic character and her fears, hopes, regrets, fury, escapes, and resignations are each quite affecting. When she has an opportunity to build a friendship not dependent on her messianic role as Historian, it is romantic and sweet. There are no easy answers to who should carry the weight of historical trauma or whether it is wrong to want to forget, but the novel’s exploration is thoughtful and encouraging that its readers should try to participate in the discussion themselves. The novel ends hopeful, and I found myself a bit misty when characters were willing to shoulder burdens that could have remained unshared.

while I wait to be a god again

Don Martin

This is a collection I received mysteriously. It arrived as something that was purchased anonymously for my wife, who assumed it was on her Amazon wish list because I had put it there by mistake (I had not). But, provided poetry, I will read the poetry.

but in wildfires and eruptions I am
reminded that I am something of substance
that in the spinning highway of the universe
I am more than a bag of chips
you would pick up at a truck stop
whose salt satisfies the illusion of hunger

- from “tool” by Don Martin

Of the 40-50 poems that are in here, I found about half a dozen that struck me as especially interesting or doing things that I found satisfying. There was interesting wordplay and easily hundreds of metaphors and similes that could have (and maybe should have) been poems unto themselves, but I was mostly underwhelmed. It feels a bit bad to say, given how poetry collections can often be so rooted in personal experience (as this seems to be). I think that my friend Terry said it most succinctly: “Seems to wander without real snap.” And that was the thing about most poems in the collection. They might do or say interesting things here and there, but as a whole they were missing the thing that makes the poem feel powerful. There weren’t lines that pulled things together into a surprising commentary or there weren’t unravellings of things that should be surprising to make them feel familiar or mundane. Everything all the time was supposed to feel interesting and clever, and as a result, nothing usually did.

This Book Will Live…

In My Library

While I haven’t found it an especially compelling collection, it may speak to students more than it speaks to me. The density of its figurative language reminds me of some of the writing my students produce in Creative Writing, and those students may find the collection welcoming.

A good example is the section of “tool” that I’ve quoted. The sentences move across lines or conclude with them inconsistently, there are metaphors and similes seemingly just because, discordant and unrelated to one another (non-literal things include: wildfires, eruptions, “spinning” highway (which is “of” the universe), a bag of chips, a truck stop, the illusion of hunger…), and the whole time the poem is theoretically exploring ordinary things (taking a shower, riding the train) that could be interesting explorations unto themselves. But, instead, the poem is so concerned with sounding clever and impressive that the result is muddled.

And that is what the month of December looked like for me. It is important to note that not all of these books began in December; I am not an especially fast reader and I frequently am into multiple things at once. I chip at them and finish them in bunches. I’ve set a goal of 36 books to read this year, the same goal I had last year, although I only managed to make it about halfway in 2022. I’m hoping for more progress this year.

I’ve started Anna North’s Outlawed, which follows a young woman in an alternate late-19th century America. She leaves her community before they put her to death for being a witch. She isn’t a witch, just an apparently infertile young woman, but after disease ripped through America and devastated the population, a theocratic and patriarchal society seems to have been built in the place of the one we know. Women’s only function is to have children, care for children, and… that may be it. Those that can’t do this may leave to a convent to avoid being killed before their 18th birthday. Or, they do as this character intends: run off to join a gang of outlaws in the west.

I am somewhat hopeful of the 30 or so pages I’ve read so far, but after starting it I found a review that has made me a bit wary. The book is apparently very limited in its perspective. Black women’s experience is almost entirely neglected, and, given that the feminist movements in the US have almost always excluded Black women in their efforts for equal rights, this is pretty disappointing. Additionally, it appears there may be a poor portrayal of a trans character. The review says that the main character treats a trans friend as a fascination only and never as a real person. Disappointing, again. I’m willing to give it a read and hope for the best. I do not think that every book needs to try to represent every viewpoint, but with Black and trans personhood frequently being under attack, I would like to see authors try to be better about it.

If you have an interest, feel free to visit my Goodreads profile. While I hope to make more posts like this in the future, it is entirely possible I’ll neglect it when my life becomes a pile of essays to grade.