EVERYONE OUT THERE who enjoys Gay's essays, about which there is much to enjoy, would find it worthwhile to seek out Murrell's book of poems. This may take some doing, as I do not think it circulated much outside Nebraska, but it has a lot of the same power.
Like Gay, Murrell wrong foots the reader in illuminating ways, sassy when you expect her to be serious, serious when expect her to be sassy. Her tone similarly swoops from academic seminar to hair salon to street to editorial page like that (imagine snap of fingers). She is tartly wise on the vicissitudes of the teaching life as an African-American woman, but keeps far, far away from familiar pieties about identity. She is frank, scarily frank, but she is telling you things you need to know. "Elegy for the Fat Nerdy Black Girl," for instance, gets to places no one else had gotten got to before--now Gay has gotten there as well.
In the opening pages of "The Spectacle of Broken Men," Gay mentions having lived in Nebraska, so I kept wondering whether she and Murrell had crossed paths; Murrell did a lot of performances/readings around here. Maybe not. They do seem to be kindred spirits, though.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment