ext_939: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (skywardprodigal Cog Flowers)
[identity profile] spiralsheep.livejournal.com
13. The Young Inferno by John Agard and Satoshi Kitamura is a verse retelling of Dante's Inferno embedded in a picture book. I liked Kitamura's stark, black and white, art style but in the art-as-storytelling stakes it seemed to me to lack variety. It also clashed with one of the text's spelled out messages: "My teacher said, 'You've got a point. Quite right. / It just shows that neither beast nor man / can be divided into black and white.' " Except this is a black and white book in several senses. Agard's verse text didn't work for me as either narrative or poetry. (Note to self: don't read retellings of Christian morality stories unless they're specifically subversive in some way.) However, I'm probably about as far from the target audience of hoodie-clad schoolboys as it's possible to be so who cares about my opinion anyway? I just hope this isn't picked up from the teen, graphic novel, section of the library by a reluctant reader who is consequently discouraged further. Agard writes good poetry but this isn't it. Kitamura's first and second illustrations are both interesting as art, especially the way Our Hero is represented as a negative (in the photographic sense) of himself, but the only illustration which wholly won me over is the fossil landscape in illo 4.

14. Too Black, Too Strong by Benjamin Zephaniah is an extremely powerful collection of individually skillful and soulful poems. Ben is one of the most humane people I've met and it shows through in every word of his work. Most people know him as a Rastafarian lyricist who wrote that "funny" poem about turkeys and Christmas, and maybe as that political poet who refused to accept the Order of the British Empire he was awarded, or that black British man who was bereaved of a family member by police violence (although that describes too many people), but his work is so much more: witty, political, memorial, deeply spiritual, widely literary, and linguistically sophisticated. There are several example poems at my dw journal.

15. Fiere* by Jackie Kay is her latest, 2011, poetry collection. I've loved Kay's writing since the first time I encountered it, years ago. Amongst other forms, she's an extremely accomplished poet in both Scots** and English. Kay's poems aren't generally confessional (in the strictest literary sense of that word) but they do contain enough autobiography that I feel some minimum background aids understanding, and that's provided in the brief blurb on the back. Kay is multiracial, her mother was a Scottish Highlander and her father was a Nigerian Igbo. She was born in Edinburgh and raised by white Scottish adoptive parents. There are two example poems, the ecstasy and the agony of human relationships, at my dw journal.

* "fiere", Scots, meaning "companion/friend/equal"
** Scots, which is primarily related to English, not Scottish Gaelic which is a different language.

Tags: women writers, african-caribbean, black british, britain, british, british-african-caribbean, caribbean, black scottish, scottish, guyanese, poetry, japanese, biracial, multiracial, children's books, sf/fantasy, fiction, guyanese-british, igbo, young adult
[identity profile] cyphomandra.livejournal.com
Jackie Kay, Trumpet. )

Jackie Kay, Wish I was Here. )

Both these books have been reviewed here before - the reviews of Trumpet made me seek it out, and I'm glad I did. While I was trying to track it down I ran across Wish I was Here as well, which I liked - not as much as Trumpet, but I'm more of a novel person in most circumstances.
sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (william hack rose by semyaza)
[personal profile] sophinisba
9. Trumpet by Jackie Kay, 1997

I loved this book a lot, probably more than anything else I've read so far this year. [livejournal.com profile] pigeonhed wrote a good review of it here. Jackie Kay does a really wonderful, subtle job of dealing with issues of gender, race, sexuality, class, and nationality interact in her characters' lives without ever taking you out of the story. It really does put you right in the minds of these people dealing with their loss and grief. I loved the way she left most of the narration to Joss's widow and son but also brought in the voices of so many other characters, and you could really see the lack of understanding between the family members and close friends who are grieving for a person they loved versus outsiders who want to know more about some sensational story. I found this book very beautiful and moving and I recommend it highly.

12. Blood Rights by Mike Phillips, 1989

Blood Rights is the first in a series of mysteries about a black British journalist named (get this, SPN fans) Sam Dean who ends up working as a private investigator. In this book he's hired by a rich white couple to look for their daughter, Patricia, who has recently disappeared. Dean is initially reluctant to take the job but he needs the money and also finds himself wanting to look out for Patricia's black friend, Roy, who reminds him both of his son and of himself as a young man.

This was a quick and interesting read and I was going along thinking, eh, it's not going to be one of my favorite books but I liked it pretty well, especially for the observations about race relations and different subcultures in London and Manchester, and I would probably try to read at least one more book in the series. Dean does that thing straight male narrators sometimes do where every time he meets a woman he has to evaluate her attractiveness, and this annoyed me some but I figured it wasn't a big deal. Early on there was a little romance developing with a female character that interested me and I was disappointed that she disappeared from the story, though I guess she comes back in later books. Then about 25 pages from the end some stuff that I really hated happened. Spoilers! )
[identity profile] pigeonhed.livejournal.com

When jazz trumpet star Joss Moody dies the world learns that he was really a woman, spending over 40 years with his breasts bound, in men’s clothing,.and avoiding situations where he might be discovered.

Trumpet however isn’t his story, of how he lived that way.  It is the story of those around him, particularly his widow, Millie, and his adopted son, Colman.  It is the story of how people identify, and are identified.  Joss was black, Millie white, both Scots, their son brought up in London.

 

Jackie Kay, herself a Scot of mixed parents and openly lesbian, does several things in her debut novel.  Most movingly she gives a potent, elegiacal voice to Millie.  None of the rest would work if Millie’s grieving didn’t carry the reader.  Equally she conveys the anguish and rage of Colman who feels betrayed by both his parents.  (Millie of course knew Joss’ secret.)  Kay also unsentimentally addresses aging through Millie and through Joss’ mother.

 

In Colman’s reflections on hi experiences growing up as a young black man Kay manages the delicate balance of showing both actual racism and how the insidious presence of racism leads to anticipation of racism even when it isn’t there. 

 

In another strand an unscrupulous self-absorbed journalist seeks to write an expose best seller about Joss the woman.  In one telling chapter the drummer Big Red tells her bluntly that he never suspected anything: “Women think that men spend all their time gawking at the size of each other’s pricks in the bogs.”  In one neat sentence Kay has pointed up one notorious failing of some male writers attempting to write women.

 

What Trumpet finally asserts is that Joss is his real identity.  The strength of this beautifully told tale is not its analysis of grief, race, gender, age, nationality, sexuality or love.  It is how she sensitively expresses all of these things and conveys the fundamental truth that identity is what we choose it to be, not what others seek to impose upon us.

 

(Just one thing bothered me though.  How could a trumpet player perform with his chest bound as tight as Kay suggests?)

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