A Toast in the House of Friends

I don't know what to say about Akilah Oliver's A Toast in the House of Friends. It is a deeply personal, intellectually and emotionally evocative collection of poems that bring you into the heart, mind and body of woman alive, filled with acute sorrow; a thoughtful, desiring subject whose use of language is so sophisticated, so intimate, so controlled, and so utterly beautiful that I can only stand in awe.

So much of the work spoke to me, it seems impossible to quote any part that would adequately convey the mystery and beauty of each poem, or the perfection of the volume as a whole -- the poems work so wonderfully together; it is an exquisitely structured book.

But I'll give it a shot:

Fib #99

walking early this cold morning when I could no longer bear
the simple and sad gloom that laced my discontent, the sky
as grimace or some kind of anguish: similar to a woman's
face: in this case, entirely arbitrary woman's: woman as
totalizing term: the essential grimace: a falling away from
youth: a mirror cold recognition, slight panic, tubercular
temporal, the unconscious reaching for the breast, a
reassurance: sexy this intimacy of gesture = a kind of holding
one's own meaning. what if when it finally betrays me or I
it I am unready to let go. the most ordinary happenings
negotiate their own permanence: this I think I will
remember when I am there in it now.

From our good day:

... it looks like the hearts on a valentine's day card or one of those you made from construction paper in third grade when the teacher was nice to you and you wrote a story about you don't know what and she said it was good and you felt visible. the sadness is that shape.