Tender (Pitt Poetry Series) - Softcover

Derricotte, Toi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822956403 ISBN 13: 9780822956402

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997

Synopsis

Toi Derricotte’s fourth collection of poetry. Tender probes sexuality, spirituality, emotion, child abuse, mother hatred, and the physical and psychological ravages of violence. These poems are raw and upsetting in subject matter, yet extremely readable.

About this title

About the Author

Toi Derricotte is an award-winning poet whose work tackles difficult and universal subject matter such as violence, racism, motherhood, and self-identity through an autobiographical lens. She is the author of The Undertaker’s Daughter and four previous poetry collections, including Tender, winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, among other honors. Derricotte is cofounder of Cave Canem, professor emerita at the University of Pittsburgh, and a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Reviews

Dericotte's preface to this work, her fourth collection of poems, invites the reader to proceed in a nonlinear fashion, with the title poem as the hub from which each section radiates. Yet part of the charm of Dericotte's work?despite its raw and upsetting subject matter?is its extreme readability, from start to finish. In plain language that does not settle for simplicity or cliche, these poems probe being at its root?sexually, spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually?and recount how violence?both physical and mental?ravages the self. One topic of particular concern is "passing"?Dericotte is a light-skinned African American who is often taken for white: "Oh, my people,/ sometimes you look at me with such unwillingness?/ as I look at you!/ I keep trying to prove/ I am not what I think you think." Section 6, "Dead Baby," is a moving litany about child abuse and mother-hatred that evokes the music of Walt Whitman in its strategic deployment of the hexameter line. Recommended for all poetry collections.?Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822956403
• ISBN 13: 9780822956402
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96