WEDNESDAYS WITH DENISE: April 19, 2023

Vievee Francis’s fourth book The Shared World was published on April 17 by TriQuarterly Books. Revelatory and redemptive, Francis is a poetry seer writing searing verse. The book’s cover art is a 1965 photograph of Galway Kinnell being assisted by Juniata College senior Harriet Richardson after Kinnell had been hit by a state trooper’s billy club in Montgomery, AL. The photograph sets us up for what is to come in Francis’s powerful book, including her brilliant ekphrasis prose poem “1965.” Francis’s necessary poems are politically charged with a tilt that will shatter your heart, constantly reminding her readers of our stake in resistance. In “Finding Myself in the Market of Accra,” Francis writes of a doll she saw on a trip to Africa:

“She was hard but could be broken. I am
only as hard as I need to be and have been
broken many times. No one seemed to find it odd
there in the market. The obvious American
holding tightly the Ghanaian doll, rocking it
back and forth in the bassinet of her arms,
cooing, It’s OK. It’s OK. It will all be OK.”

The poet is comforting herself the same way a college senior/student organizer comforted a poet all those years ago. The Shared World is a world of pain, humor, and a violent history. Francis shares a full life with intimacy and grace. She is a poet of generosity both in her disclosures and the sheer number of poems she gives us. This book is 130 pages long.
Her two prose poems about Marvin Gaye transcend any pop culture fluff and go straight to the heart of betrayal, jealousy and love: Of course my best friend married my boyfriend. Of course my boyfriend shared my love letters. What did I expect? You can get a sneak peek here:

https://www.spin.com/2021/02/a-poetic-tribute-to-marvin-gaye/

Congratulations, Vievee!

Vievee Francis’s newest collection extends her artistry. I really enjoyed Forest Primeval (2015), and this is a worthy follow-up. The poems are lyrically dense, conceptually complex. They wrestle with Black girlhood and womanhood, both through history and in a deeply personal contemporary mode. I think of Francis as an environmental poet, and here that manifests in a number of poems that feature animals—goats (background image is goats I saw yesterday!), crows, horses—often as inspired metaphor. Other recurring motifs include Marvin Gaye and cannibalism. I’d recommend this collection for poems that make you think, pause, and gasp.

I think this was the perfect book of poetry to read in February, not only to be the month of love but featuring BIPOC narratives through Black History Month. I am so thankful. to Vievee Francis, NetGalley, and Northwestern University Press for granting me access to this gem. Back on love, the scenarios presented in The Shared World were relatable and accurate enough to be felt by the reader, not weirdly or abnormally.