There are always those forces that try to invalidate my voice. To belittle or negate my thoughts, to make light of my intellect. I am here to state that that will not ever happen. Power politics are a draining and non-life-generating game, but nonetheless we have all, who are progressive, played it at one point or another. Being here at Purdue reminds me of what Germaine Greer had to say about her first teaching job somewhere in the North of England.The experiences and the sentiments are oh so similar. I absolutely adore Germaine Greer. Alas, I have been able to keep grounded throughout both Alabama AND Indiana because I have all of these magnificent voices that speak to me and that just resonate with me in my soul....and which are my reassurance and which keep me connected to my soul. Alice Walker, June Jordan, Germaine Greer,Barbra Streisand (perhaps my earliest singular experience--meaning The Color Purple was probably earlier, but I wasn't really all that aware of THE PERSON Alice Walker....I was aware of Barbra Streisand), Angela Davis, Assata Shakur,bell hooks, Elaine Brown....everybody that I have read about, come into contact with, responded to....
That said, I am probably more well-read than most people. I have written about my experience of reading a few times, but I have never really expanded on it fully. I was soo very fortunate to have grown up in a household where books were at my fingertips, where people read... I feel for those who don't have that... That said, from the time I was perhaps out of the womb I was surrounded by words-- I read by the time I was two and a half, spoke first in full sentences,and I ran my mother crazy trying to write in cursive when I was perhaps about four as I tried to copy what everyone else was writing. Alas, I started telling stories as well....and was a writer by the time I was five. My favorite stories were Cinderella(;-),Goldilocks, and the Three Little Pigs.
I moved from that to reading Anne of Green Gables in the third grade ( I was Anne of Green Gables for two years)and Jackie Collins, Danielle Steele, and Father Greeley by the time I was in the fourth. I read literally everything I got my hands on- hand me downs from my mother and sister, the encyclopedias, the phone book ( at one point), and literally everything else. With that, in the seventh grade I had my first encounter with Milton, at which point I thought he was perhaps the most brilliant man (on the wrong presumption that he was blind when he wrote Paradise Lost and that I was fascinated with his characterization of the hero--it was totally up my alley. I am not so fond of Milton anymore...for many reasons). I then went through,in this order, a french period and a Russian period, in which I read everything french--- I remember some play-- I dont remember, I think it was Camus maybe--but one of the things I read was some play about the planets and the stars---thats all I remember at this point, and I also read Mme Bovary,etc etc. Then I moved on and read Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, War and Peace,and a few others.
From then on, I was basically reading everything I touched-- The Prince of Tides ( and not only because of the Barbra factor) and Stephen King's IT really stick out to me from that period-- I was then in the eighth grade. In High School, what I read doesnt come to me as well(hmm, what a cloud over that period), ahh but I do remember I really got into Corrie Ten Boom at one point ( this was my brief religious moment, but I still adore Corrie Ten Boom-- and what she stood for and the dignity and integrity which she and her family possessed I so much still admire. Their religion I respect and very much can feel something for.) Alas, I do remember the required reading which I read in between sophomore and Junior year for my AP American History course (with the wonderful Mrs. Lawrence) was The Glory and the Dream. All I can say is, that book knocked me out of my world. It was an engaging book and was as chatty and gossipy as Jackie Collins and as historical and informative as most anything I have encountered.
In 98, my senior year of high school,on my trip to England and Ireland, at one point during my visit, I was sooo bored and walked to a used book store to find something to read. My choice was between something by John Irving ( I had pcied up, read, and absolutely LOVED The World According to Garp previously--GO Jenny Fields!)and Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker. Now, I had just read The Color Purple not even a year before(even though I had seen the film--had been seeing the film, over and over again, since it came out) and I was itching to read something else by Alice. I bought Possessing, took it back to my hotel room and started to read. I read it all through dinner and went back to my room reading the book and did not put it down until I finished it at 4 a.m. that next morning, and afterwards I sat there and cried. It was beautiful. I will never forget that experience.
That said, there have been other books that have left their marks, really major ones in some instances, on me and that have informed my intellect, my thought processes, and my spirit. I have written somewhere else of how when I was thirteen, my Uncle Donald (my father's brother) gave me a copy of Langston Hughes' I Wander as I Wander, and that book made my imagination soar and whet my appetite for many things, including travel. Alas, somewhere between my freshman and sophomore years of High School, I pulled W.E.B. DuBois's Souls of Black Folk off of my Uncle Lawrence's bookshelf and THAT book set my world a turning. I thus became a DuBoisian scholar, which has been the basis for all of my intellectual knowledge and pursuits from that point on. I became thorougly compelled and drawn into the Realms of Double Consciousness. I read along the way, still in High School-- and in the development of my Black Consciousness and my awareness as an Africana person, Lerone Bennett Jr.'s work on African Civilizations, Richard Wrights, Native Son and Black Boy,Relph Ellison's Invisible Man, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun and a couple of other works, and quite a few other texts by Black authors.
One book that keeps popping up in my brain as I write this is Lillian Hellman's autobiographical work, Pentimento. I had loved Jane Fonda's portrayal of her in Julia ( and I LOVE that film and Vanessa Redrave) and had proceeded to read Pentimento sometime during High School. It did leave quite an impression on me. I had also, by this point, read tons of histories on every subject just about--and knew more than I perhaps was aware of about the French Revolution, European History in general, and other things. I was also an expert in European Royalty (as is, was my mother--one of the interests we shared). I also have read many, many autobiographies and biographies.
In college,my freshman year, thanks and all praise to Chella Courington (lord lord lord what can we say about Chella) I was introduced to feminist theory as I skipped my German class almost every damned day and went and sat in on her Feminist Theory course where I read Helene Cixous, Julie Kristeva,Derrida, and others--my introduction to Deconstruction and Post-Structuralism. I was the exceptional odd child always. After that, I remember The Handmaid's Tale really was a permanent shock to my system-- and I adore Margaret Atwood always. A little bit before Atwood, I had read something called Waterland,which really left an impression on me. Later in college, Salman Rushdie's most wonderful and infamous book The Satanic Verses made my mouth water.I then tried something of his about Morroco, I dont remember what it was as I did not finish the book. During my junior year, I got into Baldwin (oh Jimmy), and I read Giovanni's room by myself and Rebecca and I read most of Another Country together. I think I had read "Going to Meet the Man" already by that point(what a hot, little story that is).
I also read my first major text by Audre Lorde-- Zami, as well as several works by Mab Segrest and Adrienne Rich (who's Slit at the Root I encountered only AFTER I had decided on a title for my Capstone project--which leads to the eerieness of the connection there. OH GOD, I cannot leave this essay without talking about the point in my junior at which my most wonderful and dear friend Wanda (that most profound and beautiful soul)gave ME her personal copies of Elaine Brown's A Taste of Power and Assata Shakur's Autobiography. I read them both over a weekend period at a College Bowl tournament. I believe I cried. I love both of them. I have continued to encounter beautiful, inspiring, enriching, and enlightening texts. Texts which have informed the way I live my life, have shaped my attitudes, my ideology, my outlook, my vision, my desires..... Books have played an incredible role in shaping and forming that which is me. I have enjoyed everything from the wit and socialism of G.B. Shaw to the motherly warmth of Alice Walker, the wry jewishness of Neil Simon to the raw lessons of humanity in Margaret Atwood. Books are worlds within themselves. They can inspire, inform, intrigue, and possess you.
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