Now, before Yahdon details why he chose this month’s pick, book club member Jake gives a recap on July’s meeting.

Yahdon kicked off the July meeting for Natalie Diaz’ poetry collection Postcolonial Love Poem by acknowledging his own struggles reading poetry, only recently did a poet explain to him that poetry collections are often times small as they are meant to be returned to multiple times.

With the prompt asking which poem the group found them coming back to more than once, many were drawn to Diaz’ relationship with her brother, specifically the stanzas of harm he caused, leading to a discussion of how to interpret what is literal and not. When it was Randy’s turn, he dropped some wisdom in describing his relationship with poetry being like swimming, sometimes being above water, sometimes being below water, but for this one being in the deep end of the pool hanging onto the side.

It wouldn’t be right to recap the meeting without highlighting the contributions of first time attendee Jumi, who dropped bars from beginning to end, with Yahdon even having to state that no one should feel intimidated because “Jumi is a writer, she really does this.”

The core of the conversation around Diaz’ work tied back to last month’s book Braiding Sweetgrass, the relationship of Native Americans to the land they have lived on and cared for being directly opposed to colonialism and it’s desire to create structures of “ownership” over something that cannot be owned.

While the conversation on colonialism and land took up much of the meeting, Diaz’ skill for writing about love and desire was not lost on the group, exploring the intimate and passionate moments of the poetry, full of tension and depth.

The August pick for 2021 is Deesha Philyaw's short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies.

As last month's conversation about Natalie Diaz's poetry collection ventured early and often into the territory of desire, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies is a collection of stories that will allow us to continue the discourse about desire, which, in many ways, is a way to talk about our bodies--and how we experience desire inside of them.

Though the nine stories Deesha wrote in this collection are not linked in any way directly, what connects these stories is how Christianity informs how the Black women and girls in these stories reconcile what they think they should believe with what they feel they should have.

When I read these stories, I was immediately reminded of something James Baldwin (his birthday was August 2nd) said in a 1969 documentary entitled, Baldwin's Nigger:

"I think the European personality--and this is [really] a very severe indictment of Christianity--is terribly worried about the flesh and the senses, which are really very pathological and you see this in America because [here], Black people are the flesh which the Christians mortify. [But] the flesh is all you have. If you mortify that there's no hope for you.

Everything you find out is through your senses. Everything awful that happens to you and everything marvelous that happens to you in this frame, this tenement, this moral envelope should be--instead of beating it with chains, hammering nails through it and hanging it on crosses--the celebration: your life; your body."

The singular triumph of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies is its ability to celebrate the bodies of Black women, and their desires as an asset, rather than a liability. We got another one.

This meeting takes place via Zoom, Wednesday, August 25th, 7pm [EST].

Members, be on the look out for the email with your link to access the meeting.

See you there!