Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems [Hardcover]

I was literally sitting two feet away from Alice Walker ( a small woman who carries herself with great pride) when she read poems from this book. To say that her poems were transformative is putting it mildly...I especially loved her poem about "Relatives" - telling us to not think poorly of them, but just imagine that we are from different stars! Although she did stick around to personally autograph books, I did buy her book (full price) just to have a book penned by one of our most distinguished and talented authors. Forget about rock or sports stars - my heroes are writers!

I'm not a big fan of disliking a book; I rarely do so and this book is no exception to that rule. My general approach is to find a better way of reading and enjoying it. I struggled through my first read. The poetry seemed flat; it lacked dynamism in images and language that I felt the emotional intensity of the subject matter could have used. Walker's strange blending of Self-annihilating, earthy Buddhism and her always strong, wise, and assertive motherly ethos appeared at times as the conflicting manner in which egotism seems to meet with Eastern philosophy so much in our culture. Rereading Hard Times... as a series of meditations attempting to negotiate these identities while coping with loss, grief, and distance from loved ones, however, has given me a better appreciation for the collection and the place from which Walker writes.

The poetic structure is simple and contemplative. There isn't much movement in the verse; it reads much like pages taken from the Tao Te Ching. For example, in her poem, "Rich" - a fairly simplistic if not didactic view of earthly wealth over worldly concerns - the first stanza reads:

It takes
so little
to make
me happy:
An hour
of planting
cucumbers
squash
tomatoes
is
an
hour
filled
with
gold.

This stanza highlighted a few of the negative thoughts I had upon my first reading of the book. The image of a garden above a purse of gold, the poem's later depiction of Wall Street as a dragon felt stale and ineffective to me. The line spacing and lack of dynamic verse seemed only to belabor the easy-enough-to-understand anti-materialistic view of the poet. Other poems elicit similar reactions from me. Her pro-vegetarian poem, "La Vaca, for example, states (again fairly simply):

Look
into
her eyes
and know:
She does not think
of
herself
as
steak.

Upon rereading the book, however, the line spacing, the simplicity, and the raw power of some of the poetry insists on being viewed as a series of consistently strong meditations despite confronting death and grief continuously. Her emotional wisdom is the subject of these poems. From her very short "The Answer is Yes:" "you must / run around like a / crazy person / or /walk /sedately / honoring / the /dead" to her poem to the grandchild she has yet to see, "Meeting You," there is an emotionally resonant strength and humor to her mediations.

At times, however, as in "The Taste of Grudge," Walker's transcendental persona devolves into condescension at times. The writer reminds her begrudging friend, "I may die / tonight / perhaps you / are killing me. / I do not / blame you / for anything," only after several chastising remarks. At first, I read this as a betrayal of her "Grand Mother" persona, but finally found its strength in its realism and honesty. The poem ends with an excellent axiom:

We were
not meant
to suffer
so much
& to learn
nothing.

While Buddha-like in her more didactic poems, much of the rest of her collection reveals these human moments of negotiation between her transcendental ethos and her very human and maternal Self, providing the book with the dynamism I originally hadn't seen.
When read sporadically as a series of meditations, this book of poetry proves resonant, mature, and relevant.

I recently had the distinct pleasure of hearing Alice Walker read from this her latest collection of nearly fifty poems HARD TIMES REQUIRE FURIOUS DANCING gorgeously illustrated by Shiloh McCloud. She is a consummate example of why poetry should be read aloud and by the author if at all possible.

There are so many moving, beautiful poems included here. They require not explication but rather reading and enjoying. One hardly knows where to start. She pays tribute to cows, their sacredness and their dilemma in "La Vaga." She remembers her black Lab in "My Teacher." "The World Has Changed" I believe she wrote in honor of President Obama. She in the poem "Sixty-five" cannot believe that she is this old-- talk about a poem being universal--

Sixty-five!
who can
believe it.

In "We Pay A Visit to Those Who Play At Being Dead" she reminds us that we become our parents as we age:

My mother
for instance
whose
cheekbones
greet me
from
a
recent
photograph
of myself.

Ms. Walker has written two instructive poems on the destructiveness and futility on hatred in "Watching You Hold Your Hatred" (Watching you/hold/your/hatred/for such a long time/I wonder:/Isn't it/slippery?/Might you/not/someday/drop it/on/yourself?) and "The Taste of Grudge": ("What a waste/ is any kind/of/grudge.")

"Word Has Reached Me" is a poignant poem to her dying sister as Ms. Walker seeks to make peace with her and prays that she will let go and die in peace as well:

Praying,later,
I sent word
to you that both our parents
are waiting
--all, whatever it was
that rankled--
is now
& forevermore
forgiven:
Grandpa & Grandma
are waiting too.

My favorite-- difficult as it is to pick-- if "Rich," in which the poet is content with simple pleasures:

It takes
so little
to make me happy:
An hour
of planting
cucumbers
squash
tomatoes
is
an
hour
filled
with
gold.

In an interview that Ms. Walker gave in 1973 she said that unlike her prose and fiction, that her poetry comes out of great sorrow. On the other hand she said recently that as she gets older, she becomes happier. These poems-- most of them-- are peaceful, almost elegiac. Whether they come from great pain I do not know but they convince me that she is a happy person.

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