Vessel: Poems
4/5
()
About this ebook
WINNER OF THE MIDWEST BOOK AWARD
The imagination of a girl, the retelling of family stories, and the unfolding of a rich and often painful history: Parneshia Jones’s debut collection explores the intersections of these elements of experience with refreshing candor and metaphorical purpose.
A child of the South speaking in the rhythms of Chicago, Jones knits “a human quilt” with herself at the center. She relates everything from the awkward trip to Marshall Fields with her mother to buy her first bra to the late whiskey-infused nights of her father’s world. In the South, “lard sizzles a sermon from the stove”; in Chicago, we feast on an “opera of peppers and pimento.” Jones intertwines the stories of her own family with those of historical black figures, including Marvin Gaye and Josephine Baker. Affectionate, dynamic, and uncommonly observant, these poems mine the richness of history to create a map of identity and influence.
Related to Vessel
Related ebooks
Rain Scald: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBesaydoo: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAll the Blood Involved in Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLineage of Rain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ask the Brindled Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Body Family Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsField Theories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Black Genealogy: Poems: The Mineral Point Poetry Series, #6 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Witch Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mother Body Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsApsara in New York: poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Seize Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWaterbaby Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Alight Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Muse Found in a Colonized Body Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Arco Iris Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Garden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quint Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Things I Didn't Do with This Body Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYou Don’t Have to Go to Mars for Love Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5ESL Or You Weren't Here Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Against Heaven: Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lessons on Being Tenderheaded Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Listening Skin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We Are Taking Only What We Need: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood Dazzler: Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A God at the Door Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThief in the Interior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Measures of Expatriation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Poetry For You
The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dream Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road Not Taken and Other Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Better Be Lightning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (ReadOn Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Vessel
2 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Vessel - Parneshia Jones
GIRL
Cocoa butter knees dancing
between two brotherly roads,
daydreaming, pretend out loud
Girl.
Singing off-key, flowing T-shirt hair,
microphone brush and missing front teeth.
Jackson 5, Culture Club, Whitney Houston,
Deniece Williams back up the deep-
voiced, juke joint, Midwestern-raised
Girl.
Catfish, crab legs, and chitlins
served on three-generation China.
Great Lakes, mason jars, fried pies,
and Mary Jane–wearing Girl.
Stained glass Sundays, training wheels,
wind, and a wide nose, thick plait, nappy back,
dimple in each cheek Girl.
Heiress of big legs, triple hip,
raised eyebrow, silver dollars,
dusty maps, and a diamond bracelet
Papa gave the day you graduated
eighth grade, and he said young lady
but hugged you like his little
Girl.
The only daughter
of an only daughter left;
the keeper of ash and memory,
curtsies and curiosity,
Easter poems, skinned knees,
polyester, silk, and calamity
Girl
stays close, superstitious,
sassy and studied.
Know better in your gathered years
of woman, grown, change-filled
coffee cans, kitten heels, cat calls,
and collateral, Girl is forever.
Let that Girl settle between new grays,
laugh-out-loud lines, and the sand
of her hourglass filling with fierce
each newborn day.
Girl stays forever.
I
What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.
MURIEL RUKEYSER
DEFINITION
Parnassus [pα:næs s]
n
1.a mountain in central Greece, just north of Delphi, that rises to a height of 8,064 feet (2,457 m). Held to be sacred by the ancient Greeks, it was associated with Apollo and the Muses and was regarded as a symbol of poetry. Greek name Parnassós.
2.(Literature / Poetry)
a.the world of poetry
b.a centre of poetic or other creative activity
3.(Literature / Poetry) a collection of verse or belles lettres
Parneshia [par: knee: she a]
n
1.1980—daughter of high school sweethearts (prom queen and football captain). Father,
a Creole southern rolling stone, watches an old Greek movie, hears the word Parnassus. Father told it to Mother. Mother, first generation Northerner, couldn’t understand what Father was saying (Greek doesn’t roll easy off the Creole tongue). Mother shaped the word herself while baby moved about in her belly.
2.(Woman / Poet)
a.rooted in her Midwest, in her poetry
b.growing up in Mama’s kitchen and stacks of dusty books
3.(Woman / Poet) twenty years later, the Poet searches the definition of her name…who knew
NAIAD
A philosopher asked, If you could have one super power what would it be?
When I was a little girl,
I spoke indigo—
birthed with gills passed
down from sea women.
I spoke indigo in my dreams.
My laughs and grandmother’s
sweet water lullabies conjured waves.
I spoke indigo in my prayers,
praying for family and fins,
hoping my knobby brown knees
would morph into sienna scales
with fins of fuchsia.
I