RENAISSANCE CL [Hardcover]

Ruth Forman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 1998

New poems from "a direct descendant of Nikki Giovanni and Ntozake Shange" ("Publishers Weekly"). Fulfilling the promise of her debut work, "We Are the Young Magicians", Forman's latest collection ventures into the terrain of family, death, love, and rebirth. In language that is incantatory, singing, passionate, and fresh, "Renaissance" measures the losses and celebrates the future of a generation Author appearances. .

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Forman, who won the Barnard New Women Poets Prize and appeared in the PBS series The United States of Poetry, offers her second book of poems. Stunning and beautiful, they use incantatory language that heals; through references to writers of the Harlem Renaissance, the work builds a bridge for a new generation. These poems acknowledge some painful history, both personal and collective, but they lift us from that pain with lines like "You are a healer.../...you will bring it to people/ French thyme and apple mint cherry roots blackberry leaves star/ apple words." Among the issues addressed are birth, healing, racism, black literary heritage, and abuse. Poems like "Church Y'all" celebrate language and cultural roots with the message "nothing necessary but our tongue and what we remember." For most collections.?Ann K. van Buren, New York Univ.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Abraham Got All The Stars In The Sand
Ashley
Aunt Thelma
Aye Nay
Be There For Me
Before I Leave My Doorstep To Mama's Grave
Cancer
Caught In A Hallway Of My People
Church Y'all
Come Between My Knees Child
Daughter
Don't Try To Kiss Me Into Shape
Eagle Woman
Even If I Was Cleopatra Jones
Even If You Grab A Piece Of Time
A Fable
Five
Friend
Give Me A Kiss
Graduate School
Haiku
Haiku Lost
Hand Me Your Palm
Healer
Homecoming
I Become Comfortable
I Could Let You Love Me
I Had To Find My Beauty
I Will Go
I Will Show You
Igotasonginmahead
The Journey
Jus Enough To Keep On
Kin
Let It Heal
Like To Wake Up To
A Little Voice
Los Angeles
Lungs Don't Lie
Malawi Wind Son
Momma Died When My Wisdom Teeth Come In
Mother
My Home Looks For Me
National Treasures
New Country
No Coast Guard
Old Man Samuel
On This Day
Renaissance
Reunion
Risk
Sing To Me Evenin
Someone
Sometime
Strength
Sunday
These The Times To Be Strong
To The Sea
Tracie Double Dutch On The Tongue
Venus's Quilt
We Walk
Wedding
What The Earth Said
What The Morning Said
What The Sky Said
When I Saw You Braiding Yourselves
Who Got Ma Head While They Hand In Ma Pocket Or Shopping For Everythin
Why Did She Ask Me To Do This?
The Williams Side Of The Family
The World Ends
You Say My Words Not Mine
Young Black Question
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (January 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807068403
• ISBN-13: 978-0807068403
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,932,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forman shines, October 25, 1998

By 

Colin Channer (the author of Waiting In Vain) (Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: RENAISSANCE CL (Hardcover)

How does Ruth Forman sleep at night. She must have a guilty conscience, because she's received more than her fair share of gifts. Wise beyond her years and possessed of a fine discretion that keeps her writing equipoised between embellishment and restraint, Forman, in Renaissance, has made a stridently quiet statement--open mike indulgence does not fully describe the parameters of the poetry being crafted by young writers of color-- for we are legion. With Rennaissance, Forman has emerged from the ranks of young American writers as a brave and able centurion. Where she leads I will follow.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This book takes you home and then frees you..., February 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Renaissance (Bluestreak Series) (Paperback)

...from all the things that circumvented your return. Renaissance is a gem - that rare collection with the ability to ground you; but not before it makes you take a long, hard look at your life - the good and the not-so-good of it, the hard and the soft, the disquiet and...the eventual peace. A journey to places resisted and eventually reckoned with, beautifully rendered.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ruth Forman, Word Goddess, Spell-weaver..., December 22, 2004

By 

Qevin Oji "bookthang" (Angel City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Renaissance (Bluestreak Series) (Paperback)

I heard this gifted poet at a reading at The World Stage (12/22/2004) in Los Angeles' Leimert Park Arts District tonight. I had never heard of her before. Well, maybe her name "rings a bell," but that is beside the point.

This young woman-poet's word-weaving is nothing short of spell-binding, affirming, healingly powerful. I have not seen her words on paper yet, but I imagine that they will have just as much (if not more) power and majesty.

I am a lover of her words, her work, and her spirit, for life. Ruth Forman is a gentle and loving and steady and insistent force flowering in a world much in need of Beauty and Truth.