by Alice Walker
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
THIS IS A STRANGE BOOK
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
About the Author
ALSO BY ALICE WALKER
Copyright Page
To water
poems and
drawings
Until grief is restored
in the West as
the starting place where
the man and woman
might find peace,
the culture will continue
to abuse and ignore
the power of water,
and in turn will be
fascinated with fire.
—Malidoma Patrice Somé,
THE HEALING WISDOM OF AFRICA
THIS IS A STRANGE BOOK
This is a strange little book. It is like a plant in one’s garden whose seed was blown in by the wind.
The story of A Poem Traveled Down My Arm is this: After giving up writing altogether—after more than thirty years of writing, I thought it was time— I had written a book of poems, Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth, while on retreat in Mexico. My editor asked me to pre-autograph “tip-in sheets” for the new volume, and sent me five hundred. Signing these sheets of paper, which would later be “tipped” into the book and bound, would save me time later on autographing copies of the book at bookstores; readers, I think, like to buy books that are autographed. So I sat down near a sunny window, and between cooking and gardening and traveling and so on, I signed all five hundred sheets. By now, my autograph has become a scrawl, illegible to anyone but myself, and so I’ve begun to think of it not as words, but as a design. I sent the signed sheets off. A few days or weeks later, I was asked to autograph another thousand. I came face-to-face with how boring it is to write one’s own name. Unlike many people who are asked for autographs and who willingly give them no matter what else they might be doing, I will often refuse. Gently and graciously, usually. Or I will explain: No, I am on my way to the dentist, a funeral, grocery shopping, this is not a good time. By now I must have written my name a million times.
As I began signing sheets of the quite high stack of blank paper, my pen joined me in boredom at writing my name. It began to draw things instead. I was delighted. There was an elephant! A giraffe! A sun! A moon! Hair!
And at the same time, as if completely over the mundane task of writing my name, we, my pen and I, began to write poems.
I was working in the dining room and keeping an ear open to things cooking on the stove in the kitchen. Sometimes I would rush to stir the soup, and a poem would bubble up so quickly I had to forget the soup and rush back to write the poem. For a while I simply signed the drawings and left them in the stack. I thought: How sweet to offer this signed drawing to the person who buys this book, rather than a scrawled signature. But the poems and drawings started to form something that I thought I might like to experience myself, so I pulled them out of the stack.
I saw that the poems spoke a different poem-language than I usually use, which meant I was somewhere, within myself, new. The drawings reflected the fact that I don’t know how to draw, and yet, like folk art all over the world, they had Life. Stuffing them under a cushion because they seemed awkward wouldn’t work, because they did have this life; they would peek out.
And that, dear reader, is the story. Not all of it, of course. Because. It is really a story about exhaustion. About deciding to quit. About attempting to give up what it is not in one’s power to give up: one’s connection to the Source. Being taught this lesson. Ultimately it is a story about Creativity, the force that surges and ebbs in all of us, and links us to the Divine.
In A Poem Traveled Down My Arm there is a poem that goes like this:
What hair
we here!
Mandela
Douglass
Einstein
Between assassination
suicide
living
happily.
On the page following this poem there is a drawing of their hair. Mandela’s is a mandala of curled and tightly spiraled rosettes, all happy to grow over and around one another. Frederick Douglass’s hair, the mane of a man who would not be a slave and definitely would not be badly dressed once he was free, is an attitudinal, kinky fluff that hangs to his neck. It was white as snow during much of his life, and must have lit up every room he entered, like a moon. Einstein’s mind-blown locks speak to the naturalness that true creativity demands. He had seen where we’re headed: The Third World War may be fought with bombs, he declared, but the Fourth World War will be fought with sticks and stones. Or words to that effect. Hair care was the least of it. And so his hair defines the expression “every which a way.”
Mandela a “terrorist,” Mandela with a price on his head, or on any piece of him, in fact; Mandela in prison for twenty-seven years; Mandela with a free heart. Douglass the same: enslavement, refusal of enslavement, flight, resistance, rebellion. Free heart. Einstein different, but similar: He saw humanity’s enslavement to its fear of itself, where such fear would lead. Still he enjoyed some very good days.
And so it can be with us. And so says the poem:
Between assassination
suicide
living
happily.
1
Because
you rubbed
my shoulder
last night
a poem
traveled down
my arm.
Living
this year
in
disaster:
How
is
it different?
No one
has
escaped
a
blessing.
2
There is
no God
but
Love
Helpfulness
is
Its
name.
Air
is God
& connects
us.
3
Every time
you
die
you live
differently.
You cannot
eat
money
if you could
it would
make
you
sick.
Removing
the
boulder
reveals
the
message
underneath.
Buddha
helps
us up
while
lying
down.
4
The right road
disappears
beneath
our
feet.
Goddess looks
through
your eyes
is
your hand.
The end
is coming
yesterday
it was
here
Earth
is
too wet
to be
a
machine.
Those
who remember
have
been touched
by us.
5
Unload
the
useless
information
say
farewell
to
comparing
mind.
Balance
She is
not
dead
who left
her
giggle
in
your
empty
field.
You will
be
tried
in the
fires
of
small talk.
Your
suffering
from
witticisms
will
be
endless.
6
Fifty years
to see
the flower
at
my birth.
7
Snake
they
separated
us.
Feed
the
stranger
under
your
coat.
8
The dead
do not
have
long
to wait
for birth.
9
She
comes
from
heaven
unannounced
10
Birth
is
so
endless
Who
dies
being
born?
Love
your
friends.
We do not
know
anything
think
of that.
To remember
is
to plan.
11
River runs
from us;
Lake sees.
Mind
shine.
12
Leonard
was right
to
love
Virginia.
Virginia
was
right
to be
insane.
Who can
bear
to know
what evil
lurks
in our bowl
of peas?
13
Who is
in charge
loses.
Inflation
is
prelude.
A million
blessings
no one
home
in us.
14
What is
a promise
if
not
your
hand
in mine?
Fearless
lie down
beside me
I cannot
bite emptiness.
The straight
path
follows
an endless
curve.
15
When we
have changed
everything
we will eat
congratulations
with
our tea.
No one
can end
suffering
except
through
dance.
Who dives
knows
water
ways.
16
Why not
choose?
What is
this
cradle
(of civilization)
but
the
grave?
Do not
cling
to being
lost.
What hair
we here!
Mandela
Douglass
Einstein
Between assassination
suicide
living
happily.
17
Understanding
war
I do not
harm
myself.
The Navy
so
loud
whales cannot
believe
our
silence.
Silent Spring
birds
even we
have lost
our
voice.
The crushed
teapot
in
the rubbish
of the
bulldozed
house
will sing
in your
ears
forever.
That is
the law.
The more
intelligence
the fewer
wars
children.
Not buying
war
grief
remains
unsold.
Neither
the war
nor
the
infant
was sent
to save
us
from
our
fate.
What do Indians dance
into
their dance?
Recognize
karma
y
el
destino.
Who taught us
to ask
for
that
which
makes
us
weep?
Why is
Earth
saying
yes, yes
smiling?
18
What do Africans
know
that
they
are
no longer
telling
us?
Mother Africa
turns
her head
away:
blood on
her
head
on
her
shoe.
She knows.
There is
no God
but
God
who closes
windows.
You will
long
for
me
I am
inside.
Her world
understands
us
as
The people who eat:
They who
bring
death.
You can buy
a piece
of
Antiquity
to impress
your
friends.
Half of it
was
crushed to dust
by Saviors
blew
away.
Civilization
was
an excuse.
Of what
do
Palestinians
dream
could we
live
there?
To live
in this world
is to accept
torture
even
of
tomatoes.
Who knew?
Not to have
faith—
Time is
too
&nb
sp; long!
19
Release
the tyranny
of
white:
Paint your
house
to open
the heart
shelter
the soul;
eat
yams.
Release
the tyranny
of
black:
Worship
snow;
eat
escargot.
Release
the tyranny
of
gender:
Make
love
not
pro-
gramming.
Reborn
a
persimmon
tree
no mystery
how
to
behave.
But that
takes
Time.
20
Buddha nature
not
a gift
from
Buddha
but
from
nature.
The living
die
when dead
men fight.
The old woman
sits beside
the window
that was
destroyed.
How can
you tell
she is
not you?
Know
the
notion
of bombing
you
was
no
friend
of
mine.
Who can dance
footless?
Woman
reborn
as
man
do
not forget
this life.
Man
reborn
as
woman
do not
give
in
to
fear.
Take a