8 minute read
Feminist Five
Advertisement
"Beyond the Gender Binary will give readers everywhere the feeling thatIn the early 1800s, the Mvskoke people were forcibly removed from theirIn The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and FairerAn intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing, anything is possible within themselves"--Princess Nokia, musician and“Documents centuries of techniques designed to limit progress in the blackoriginal lands east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory, which is now partHealth Care, author T.R. Reid describes the methods that other industrializedUnburied, Sing examines the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and co-founder of the Smart Girl Club community. Although some of the material may be upsetting, this is a bookof Oklahoma. Two hundred years later, Joy Harjo returns to her family’s democracies have used to provide healthcare for citizens for far less than what the power – and limitations – of family bonds. l that should absolutely be included in the curriculum." – Starred review, Schoolands and opens a dialogue with history. is spent for health care in the United States. These countries, in doing so for In Beyond the Gender Binary, poet, artist, and LGBTQIA+ rights advocateLibrary Connection In An American Sunrise, Harjo finds blessings in the abundance of herless money, provide universal coverage for all their citizens. Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. Alok His h Vaid-Menon deconstructs, demystifies, and reimagines the gender binary.omeland and confronts the site where her people, and other indigenoumother, Leonie, is in constant conflict with herself and those around her. She is s When America achieves milestones of progress toward full and equal blackfamilies, essentially disappeared. From her memory of her mother’s death, to her beginnings in the T.R. Reid describes his purpose in writing this book to “search the developed world for effective health care black and her children's father is white. Embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of her circumstances, she participation in democracy, the systemic response is a consistent racistnative rights movement, to the fresh road with her beloved, Harjo’s personal life intertwines with systems and take lessons from the ones that work best.” Not surprisingly, Reid finds positives and negatives in wants to be a better mother, but can't put her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. backlash that rolls back those wins. We Are Not Yet Equal examines five of these moments: The end of thetribal histories to create a space for renewed beginnings. Her poems sing of beauty and survival, illuminating a spirituality that connects her to her ancestors and thrums with the quiet anger of livingmany of the systems he evaluates in an unbiased fashion. His conclusion that all of these other plans spend "Thank God we have Alok. And I'm learning a thing or two myself."--Billy Porter, Emmy award-winningCivil War and Reconstruction was greeted with Jim Crow laws; the promise of new opportunities in the Northin the ruins of injustice. less on health care administration than the United States, achieve better outputs than the US system, and When the children's father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north actor, singer, and Broadway theater performer during the Great Migration was limited when blacks were physically blockedcover all citizens within their countries is irrefutable. to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State Penitentiary. At Parchman, from there moving away is another boy, from the the "When reading this book, all I feel is kindness."--Sam Smith, Grammy and Oscar award-winning singer and South; the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision was met with the shutting down of public schools throughout the South; the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 led to “An American Sunrise is full of celebration, crisis, brokenness and healing, with poems that rely on lyric techniques like repetition, avoidance of temporal specifics and the urge to speak “Not many writers of any ilk… can match T.R. Reid’s ability to bring a light, witty touch to really serious topics–like health policy around the globe. ” –New America Foundation ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love. songwriter collectively… ” laws Rich that disenfranchisedwith Ward's distinctive, millions oflyrical langu African Americanage, Sing, Unburied voters , Sing b andrings athWar on Drugs thate archetypal road no disproportionatelyvel into rural "A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change."-- Kirkus Reviews, starred reviewtargeted blacks; and the election of President Obama led to an outburst of violence including—Daisy Fried, New York Timestwenty-first century America. the death of black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri as well as the election of Donald Trump.
“However eternal its concerns, Sing, Unburied, Sing is perfectly poised for the moment. It combines aspects of the American road novel and the ghost story with a timely treatment of the long aftershocks of a hurricane and the opioid epidemic devouring rural America ... It is Ward’s most unsparing book.” - Parul Sehgal, New York Times
“I believe there is power in words, power in asserting our existence, our experience, our lives,
through words. ” ― Jesmyn Ward, The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race
Jesmyn ArtistWard (bo and rn April activist1, 1977) is V an aid-MenAmerican on novel demonsist and an trates associate how profess the or of English normativity of theat Tulane University. Sh gende woner binary represses creativity andthe 2011 National Book Award for Fictio i nnflifor ctsher second nphysical andovel Salvage th emotionale Bones and violwon ence. the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction for her novel Sing, Unburied, Sing. She also received a 2012 Alex Award for the story about familial l The auove and thor, whocommunity sein parents emigratedfacing Hurricane Katrin fa.romShe iIndia, s the o writes abnly woman outand only Afri ho can w enforcement American to win th of the e Nation gender binary al Book Award for begins befo Fiction twice. re birth and The first in her family to attend college, she earned a B.A. in English, in 1999, and an M.A. in media studies and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerabcommunication, in 2000, le dboth ue to Western conception at Stanford University. Ward choses of gen to becomeder as a writer bi to nary.honor Gender assthe memory of ignher ments younger createbrother, a nwhoarrativewas killed for how a persoby a drunk driver inn shouOctoberld behave, what2000. In 2005, Wardthey are alreceived her lowedMFA in to likeCreative or wear, andWriting from the how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads toUniversity of Michigan. Shortly afterwards, she and her family became victims of Hurricane Katrina. an inseparable link between Tiredgenand der and traumatized, shame.the family Vaid-Menowas eventually n challengiven shelterges familiarby another white arguments against gendfamily down the road. Ward went er on nonco to work nf at ormity, breakithe University of ng them dNew Orleans, own whereinto four categories—dismiss her daily commute took her through al, the inconvenienneighborhoods ce, bioloravaged by gy, the hurricane. Empathizing with the struggle of the survivors and coming to terms with her own experience during the storm, and Ward thewas slipp unableery slope (fear of the conseqto write creatively for three years – theuen timeces of acceptance). Headit took her to find a publisher for ers inher first bold novel, font createWhere the Line an accesBleeds. sible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as In 2008, just as Ward had decided intimate to give up and vulnwriting and erablenroll e in as talking witha nursing program, a bes Where t frien the Lined. At Bleeds the was accepted by Doug Seibold at Agate Publishing. The novel was picked as a Book Club Selection by Essence magazine and same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and received a Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) Honor Award in 2009. It was shortlisted for the Virginia poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the humanCommonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power. ” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
