Morrison & Kingsolver: The Overlap of Literary Genius

I recently finished The Poisonwood Bible, after weeks spent flooding its pages with my own ink, reflecting upon its themes and meanings. The novel turned out to be one of my favorites of the books I've been assigned in English class throughout my high school career. While reading it, I was continuously reminded of Beloved by Toni Morrison, another one of the most influential stories I've read in high school and one of my favorite books in general. The parallels between the ideas and storylines of the two novels are undeniable. Both explore the complex family dynamic of a group of individuals faced with hardship and prejudice. Both experiment with structure through variation in time and narrator. Both include the loss of a central character who plays the role of daughter, sister, and metaphor. And I'd argue that both are prime examples of literary genius.

The final chapter of The Poisonwood Bible, entitled "The Eyes in the Trees" most reminded me of the style Toni Morrison uses in Beloved. From the first paragraph, I was already caught between the world of the Prices and the world of Sethe, Beloved, and Paul D, the central characters of Morrison's novel. Kingsolver writes,

"The glide of belly on branch. The mouth thrown open wide, sky blue. I am all that is here. The eyes in the trees never blink. You plead with me your daughter sister sister for release, but I am no little beast and have no reason to judge. No teeth and no reason. If you feel a gnawing at your bones, that is only yourself, hungry."

First of all, the thematic connections between the two authors' stories are apparent. Trees, hunger, teeth, and judgment, all of which are found in the passage above, are just a few of the miscellaneous items that are found throughout both novels.

From a literary perspective, I think there are several strengths of this paragraph that Morrison also employs in her writing. The unclear voice automatically engages the reader, requiring careful reading in order to decipher the identity of the narrator. Morrison also utilizes this strategy, as her chapters shift in voice without initially naming the narrator.

SPOILER ALERT: In the case of the passage above, the voice belongs to muntu, a Congolese concept of the human spirit, both living and dead. Specifically, the chapter from which the excerpt was taken pertains to Ruth May, a central character of the story who dies but continues to express her thoughts.

In addition to fluctuating narrators, both Morrison and Kingsolver incorporate short sentences in their writing to emphasize certain images and concepts. Varied sentence length and structure is a useful tool to manipulate the reader's focus and to separate details and ideas.

The two authors are also unafraid of playing with punctuation. In the paragraph above, Kingsolver writes "daughter sister sister" without any commas to separate the words, perhaps intending to blur the distinction between Ruth May's roles in the story in relation to other characters. Morrison is even more fearless when it comes to breaking the laws of grammar; she writes an entire chapter without periods, so that the sentences flow together in a poetic stream of consciousness.

The following is a passage of Beloved that includes many of the same strategies and themes Kingsolver implemented.

"All of it is now it is always now there will never be a time when I am not crouching and watching others who are crouching too I am always crouching the man on my face is dead his face is not mine his mouth smells sweet but his eyes are locked"

Like Kingsolver's passage mentioned earlier, this excerpt from Beloved includes short, pointed sentences and an unconventional grammatical structure. Additionally, it's interesting to note that both passages emphasize the image of eyes.

Beyond these surface-level similarities, the overlap is even more noteworthy. Both Ruth May and Beloved eventually become bodiless spirits, souls without human life but still possessing a voice, a story to share. Undoubtedly, the complexities of the two novels intertwine, but they each have uniquely important messages to deliver. I'll leave it to you to discover those messages for yourselves. Perhaps, along the way, you'll also be struck by the overlap between them.

SLAM!

Some words float from the tongue like flurries, the syllables feathery and soft. Others hide in the corners of sentences, suffocated by spotlight-hogging nouns, buried between flashy verbs and adjectives. Then there are the words that beg to be screamed, not said, letters jammed together so that just the sound of the word makes you shudder.

'Slam' is such a word. There is no element of softness, silence, calm. Everything about it is loud and attention-seeking. If 'slam' were a person, it would be a champion wrestler or a fearless politician.

According to Merriam-Webster, 'slam' means:

-to strike or beat hard (verb)

-to shut forcibly and noisily (verb)

-to utter verbal abuse or harsh criticism (verb)

-a heavy blow or impact (noun)

-a noisy violent closing (noun)

-a banging noise, especially one made by the slam of a door (noun)

-a cutting or violent criticism (noun)

-a poetry competition performed before judges (noun)

'Slam' is thought to be of Scandinavian origin, deriving from the Norwegian word 'slamre' (to bang) and the Swedish word 'slamra'(to rattle).

There are numerous uses of the word in pop culture. Grand slam. Slam dunk. Poetry slam.

Poetry slam is my personal favorite. I discovered the undeniable power of slam poetry this summer, when I was perhaps overflowing with typical teenage angst. I've always loved poetry more than any other art form, but this was more than merely words arranged in stanzas or clipped lines. Slam poetry speaks; it slices right through the soul, sears carefully-constructed beliefs until they crumble beneath beautifully revolutionary thoughts.

After an entire summer spent perusing the internet for slam poetry, compiling a list of favorite performances, I've selected a few videos to share, pieces that perfectly illustrate why slam poetry is deserving of its name. S-l-a-m. To strike or beat hard. A heavy blow or impact. A cutting or violent criticism. Nothing about slam poetry is timid or restrained. Just like its name, it doesn't speak. It screams.

Here's a video by Andrea Gibson, award-winning slam poet and social activist:

Andrea's poem, "Blue Blanket", addresses gender issues and sexual abuse. Her words are piercing, and her execution is flawless, so that the performance resonates with those personally affected by themes of sexual objectification and violence, as well as any other human beings with an ounce of compassion. My favorite part is:

but how much closer to free would any of us be

if even a few of us forgot

what too many women in this world cannot

and I'm thinking

what the hell would you tell your daughter

your someday daughter

when you'd have to hold her beautiful face

to the beat-up face of this place

that hasn't learned the meaning of

"stop"

Not only does Andrea master the crafting of language with her spot-on rhyming and rhythms, but she also successfully draws people in by including an addressee, directly challenging the audience to reflect upon the state of society and what it means for our children, our futures. To me, this performance exemplifies the essence of slam poetry and the word slam itself.

The following is another example of brilliant slam poetry, performed by Joshua Bennett, Brave New Voices slam champion.

This poem even more directly connects to the 'slam' aspect of slam poetry, as Joshua voices:

true love knows no frequency

and so I will use these hands to speak volumes

that can never be contained within the boundaries of sound waves

I will shout at the top of my fingertips until digits dance

and relay these mental messages directly to your soul

If that poetry doesn't 'slam' you, I don't know what will. There's something about slam poetry that is so raw, so honest, so real. By both reciting his poem and incorporating sign language into his performance, Joshua's message demands to be heard, seen, and felt, just as the word 'slam' implies.

My final suggestion is the work of a younger performer, a video I stumbled across in the blogging world. The blogger is genderkid, a transgender boy from Argentina. His post about a slam poet, Miles, can be viewed here. Miles's performance touches on gender identity and the impact of names. His fearlessness astounds me; I can't imagine being brave enough to share such an emotional personal story with the world. To me, this is what 'slam' really means.

Names and the Truth of Things

"If names are not correct, language will not be in accordance with the truth of things." -Confucius

In the novel The Poisonwood Bible, which was introduced in my previous post, the significance of names is a recurring theme. In the language of the Congo, the nation in which the story is set, various words, such as muntu and nommo, have multiple meanings. Essentially, these words are names-- the names of creatures, objects, concepts. In the same way a single word can have many connotations, the name of a person arguably shapes his or her identity. Adah explores this idea in the following passage.

"A child is not alive, claims Nelson, until it is named. I told him this helped explain a mystery for me. My sister and I are identical twins, so how is it that from one single seed we have two such different lives? Now I know. Because I am named Adah and she is named Leah."

Though it's evident that Adah and Leah's different names don't entirely explain their separate selves, the passage got me thinking. Names do certainly influence how we view others and, to an extent, how we feel about ourselves. I can attest to the latter, considering I've chosen to change my name numerous times. My birth name is Kathryn with a 'y', a fact I point out often. Why does the spelling matter to me so much? Perhaps because it distinguishes me from the multitude of Katherines in the world. I've never felt like I fit in with everyone else, so to me, the 'y' in my name always seemed to reflect that distinction.

Yet I was never called Kathryn. From the day my blue eyes opened to this world, my parents called me Katy, a nickname consistent with the appropriately alternate spelling of my full name. But in kindergarten, my stubborn six-year-old self realized just how many Katy/Katies (mostly Katies) there were. Suddenly, a silent, secret letter was not enough. I needed an audible difference to set me apart from those who shared my name. In what I then saw as a stroke of genius or divine intervention, perhaps, a name drifted down from some holy place and landed at my little feet. Kathy.

Never mind that it's associated with middle-aged soccer moms or visibly graying librarians. To my kindergarten self, it was beautiful. The addition of just one tiny letter transformed my former name into something unique. It was as if I added brightly-colored laces to an old, worn pair of shoes-- the name was essentially the same, but infinitely better and more expressive of my individual self.

The name stuck for a solid five years, but upon entering junior high, I realized that no one my age had my name. No one. And not because it was strange but cool, like 'Montana' or 'Juliet', but because it was a "mom name".

Suddenly, I became ashamed of the identity I had once hand-selected for myself. I wanted simple. I wanted short. Just a single syllable, easy to spell, to pronounce, and most importantly, "normal". Kate fit the bill. I adopted that identity, and it's remained mine ever since.

It's funny-- I often divide the timeline of my life by my names. I almost see myself as a different person in each name phase. Katy was cute and quiet, Kathy was awkward and shy, Kate is...still evolving.

Why do our names have such an influence on how we perceive ourselves? And are others' judgments of us actually influenced by our names? No doubt you've contemplated whether someone does or does not look like a Joanne, or a Robert, or an Emily, but how does one determine what exactly constitutes the owner of a certain name? Are names not merely sounds, strings of letters?

Adah would argue otherwise. As she says, "I prefer Ada as it goes either way, like me. I am a perfect palindrome...For my twin sister's name I prefer the spelling Lee, as that makes her--from the back-court position from which I generally watch her--the slippery length of muscle that she is."

Maybe, as Adah/Ada suggests, there are more to names than just their aesthetic appeal. Maybe names do correlate to their subject's identity, to the "truth of things", as Confucius puts it.

Backwards Was Everything If What?

In English class, we recently started reading The Poisonwood Bible, a novel by Barbara Kingsolver about a conservative Baptist family's mission experience in the Belgian Congo. A more detailed summary can be viewed here.

Throughout the book, Kingsolver demonstrates her undeniable brilliance regarding the craft of writing, from her thoughtful metaphors to recurring consonance to richly-developed character perspectives. I could comment on any number of her stylistic choices, but the part that resonated with me most in my reading thus far was not one of Kingsolver's beautifully-implemented writing methods, per se, but a concept of language brought up through the character Adah's intuitive voice. In the following passage, Adah reflects on the significance of the arrangement of words.

"When I finish reading a book from front to back, I read it back to front. It is a different book, back to front, and you can learn new things from it. It from things new learn can you and front to back book different a is it?" (57).

I found this passage to be incredibly thought-provoking. As writers, we devote hours to selecting the perfect word with just the right rhythm and associations. These careful decisions receive recognition through the silent appreciation of our readers, as that glorious series of syllables can trigger a thousand different images in our audience's minds. Yet the subtleties buried between the lines are often overlooked. The way in which those hand-picked phrases are strung together is as important as the phrases themselves. If the order of just two words is flipped, the meaning of an entire sentence can be transformed.

Furthermore, as Adah's thought process reveals, it's interesting to note how the meaning of a single line changes if it's read in reverse. This suggests that it's not merely individual words that conjure up memories, thoughts, and emotional reactions from readers. It's also the words that surround those words and the sequence in which all the words are placed.

This idea of "writing backwards" has been explored in various forms of literature. Upon rereading this excerpt of The Poisonwood Bible, a specific poem came to mind. Though it's the work of an adolescent rather than an accomplished author, I still believe there's value in analyzing how the young writer played with the composition of words. I originally came across it on teenink.com, a site I would recommend for all word lovers, but especially my fellow teens. The full text of the poem is copied below:

you were gone

you were gone from school today, i sat
behind your empty chair and almost
swore i could see outlines of
your body moving like it
had the day before, like
some animated
chalk person,
bright and
gone.

you are beautiful and you are hidden,
all the while you show yourself to me.
she had told me to live in the moment,
see, so i rubbed your back and asked
you questions. cried and breathed on
your body. kissed your head and ran
away.

i wanted to kiss you in that moment,
your eyes downturned and pleading.
i knew if i had, i would have gotten
carried away, you would have gotten
carried away. you, and your arms out
and your small smile, but it had been
carried away and it was gone.

to experiment is not fair to you, not
fair to my mother, not fair to God. to
experiment is to kill myself. then why
(your red hair) do you (tiny teeth)
enter my mind (small hands) at all
times (furrowed brows), every time.

sometimes, my thoughts look like:
i want you. i want you and your trail
of young philosophers behind you. i
want you and the force behind your
eyes. i want you and the naked space
on the side of your neck. i want you.

gone and bright, person chalk animated
some like, before day the had it like
moving body your of outlines see
could i swore almost and chair
empty your behind sat i,
today school from
gone were
you.

I felt it necessary to include the whole poem, so as not to interfere with the poet's craftsmanship, but the first and last stanzas are the pieces most relevant to the theme of this post. Strangely, I found myself more affected by the final stanza, even though it involved the same exact words as the first, merely in the "wrong" order. I think it may be because the unusual language structure forced me to slow down and savor each word in its own right. Additionally, the fragmented flow of the sentence varied its emphasis and tone. I perceived the second version to be more poignant, as its jumbled nature managed to convey the confusion and tangled emotions of the speaker.

Though I admit that learning to write and read backwards may not be the most essential of skills, I do believe it's an element worthy of being added to the ongoing conversation of how we tell stories.

It perceive you how change will backwards something seeing perhaps.