The Venus Hottentot: Poems [Paperback]

Elizabeth Alexander (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2004

Elizabeth Alexander's highly praised first collection is available once again

I didn't want to write a poem that said "blackness
is," because we know better than anyone
that we are not one or ten or ten thousand things
Not one poem
-from "Today's News"

Originally published in 1990 to widespread acclaim, The Venus Hottentot introduces Elizabeth Alexander's vital poetic voice, distinguished even in this remarkable first book by its examination of history, gender, and race with an uncommon clarity and music. These poems range from personal memory to cultural history to human personae: John Coltrane, Frida Kahlo, Nelson Mandela, and "The Venus Hottentot," a nineteenth-century African woman who was made into a carnival sideshow exhibit.

In language as vibrant within traditional forms as it is within improvisational lyrics, the poems in The Venus Hottentot demonstrate why Alexander is among our most dazzling and important contemporary poets and cultural critics.

"Alexander creates intellectual magic in poem after poem."
--The New York Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Readers owe themselves the many pleasures to be found in this book; Elizabeth Alexander creates intellectual magic in poem after poem." --The New York Times Book Review

"The poems are catchy, seductive, steeped in history, more rewarding on successive readings. The Venus Hottentot is a superb first book," --Poetry

"One of the most exciting books of poetry to come out in a very long time. An extraordinary new voice has been added to literature." --People

About the Author

Elizabeth Alexander is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Antebellum Dream Book. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555973922
• ISBN-13: 978-1555973926
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #248,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Terrible Beauty, April 12, 2000

By 

Christopher Nicholls (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Venus Hottentot (Callaloo Poetry Series, Number 9) (Paperback)

"All changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born." --W.B. Yeats, "Easter 1916"

"a terrible beau- ty a terrible beauty a terrible beauty a horn" --Elizabeth Alexander, "John Col"

The parallel of Ireland's War for Independence to John Coltrane's jazz at first may strike some readers as a stretch. However, through the pen of Elizabeth Alexander, an African-American poet who manages to discuss at once important issues of race and myriad topics within history, art and music, any connection is elucidated with eloquence and power. In "The Venus Hottentot," Alexander's first book of poems, the subjects range from personal memory to entire cultural memories to human subjects: John Coltrane, Romare Bearden, Claude Monet, a rare black cowboy. In the fourth section of her book, Alexander's essential message is one of unity in difference. "I could go to any city/ and write a poem" she states in "Miami Footnote." And she does, writing out of Boston, Philadelphia, Brooklyn. Her subjects are black, Hispanic, and the eye with which she paints them has its own form of the Monet's xanthopsia in "Monet at Giverny." Colors fade from the black and vivid blue of Bearden's collages into "yellow freesia," "red notes." In "Today's News", she states that "blackness is" is a poem she does not want to write, because "we are not one or ten or ten thousand things." The reader stands looking up and around at the montage, a Diego Rivera mural surrounding one with "walls and walls of scenes of work." The "Painting" is effusive, so why not include the Irish? Out of the clashes of culture, the curious, though ignorant, manipulation of a race in "The Venus Hottentot," a "terrible beauty is born." Alexander sees this beauty in all its colors and musical shadings, none of which alone can describe a situation. Shading her vision with Irish green or Monet's blue, she lives true to the words of "Today's News": "Elizabeth,/ this is your life. Get up and look for color,/ look for color everywhere." Perceptive readers would do well to join Alexander in her search; they just might find something unexpected and lovely.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars kinetic poetry, April 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Venus Hottentot (Callaloo Poetry Series, Number 9) (Paperback)

If you're looking for an energetic, political, feminist poet who calls it like it is - you've got to read this book. It is beautifully provocative, and tightly written - very exciting stuff.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very, very good., August 19, 2008

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Venus Hottentot (Callaloo Poetry Series, Number 9) (Paperback)

Elizabeth Alexander, The Venus Hottentot (University Press of Virginia, 1990)

I started a number of poetry volumes over the weekend, including a much-anticipated one from one of my favorite poets, and none of them captured me the way The Venus Hottentot did. Elizabeth Alexander has a wonderful voice, and she knows how to craft it into strong, yet delicate, poems:

"I half expect him to pull silk
scarves from inside me, paper poppies,
then a rabbit! He complains
at my scent and does not think
I comprehend, but I speak

English. I speak Dutch. I speak
a little French as well, and
languages Monseiur Cuvier
will never know have names."
("The Venus Hottentot")

Wonderful stuff indeed.

The entire collection is not as strong as this opening salvo; Alexander does devolve into polemic now and again, but usually manages to snap out of it within a few lines. This one goes on the "highly recommended" shelf. *** ½