Word Time

"This former San Francisco Poet Laureate and worldly cosmonaut handles politics, war, and love in equal measure as the best poets of the people do. Pablo Neruda. Bob Kaufman. June Jordan. Wanda Coleman. Ears to the ground and eyes to the sky."—Giovanni Singleton, author of Ascension

A cosmic vision of the nature of being, wedded to a streetwise indictment of the post-colonized world.

Hearing Osage Indian artist Duane BigEagle pose the question "How old is your language?" set devorah major thinking about language and what language was "hers." The result is word time, a collection of poems organized around grammatical categories. The book creates connections, not through the traditional meanings of the parts of speech that become phrases, sentences, lines, poems, but through the relationship between infinite time and the finite human endeavors of healing, and of assault. It interrogates the birth and rebirth of humankind, and specifically of humans born of Africa and the African diaspora, a subset and superset of that humanity, grounded in the planet, galaxy, and universe where humanity was born.

Juxtaposing the archetypal with the specific, word time ranges in scope from Yoruba fertility myths to the racist justification of slavery in Florida's social studies curriculum, traveling through space and time as it contemplates the horrors of ecological destruction and the perpetual capacity of humanity to survive, heal and move forward in a universe that is constantly transforming. It takes a circular view of our species from its origins to the fact of its inevitable future demise, telling the story of humans then, as spirit and myth, now, as war and oppression, and in the future, as memory.

devorah major was born and raised in California, granddaughter of immigrants, documented and undocumented, and served as San Francisco's Third Poet Laureate (2002–2006). Her poetry has carried her to many countries, where she has performed with and without musicians. Her previous books include with open arms, Califia's Daughter, and where river meets ocean. Winner of the Regina Coppola International Literary Award Italy, 2022, major is a member of Daughters of Yam, a poetry and jazz performance duo. She has performed as poet and actress with First Voice productions of Song of the City in 2022 and Soul of the City in 2023 and 2024, and currently lives in Oakland, CA.