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Book Review: Between the World and Me

10/8/2020

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Because Black Lives Matter, and that's all any of us should be talking about right now, I'm taking a pause from SFF to review a book that's not new but is new to me. Published in 2015, Ta-Nehisi Coates book Between the World and Me is an epistolary essay written by the black author to his black teenage son. It's a complicated book, full of love and pain, holding the meditative quality of black man remembering the process of living into himself in the midst of a racially divided and divisive America. And it is the story of a black body vulnerable to the continued violence of a deluded nation. So in essence, Coates tells the story of our times.

Important reading, and the text does not pull punches. This is a book that will change your life, because it will change your heart. Coates changed my heart. And in the change, the view isn't prettier, or relieving. Here, the pressure is on. 

First, language. The words here are strong and clear, and the book moves with a relentless connection to place and community. Coates' world is Baltimore, Maryland; Howard University, Washington D.C.; Brooklyn, NY, and finally Paris, France. These places and their people made him, and in the rhythm of his words, I feel city streets, neighborhoods, corner stores, bodegas, and the ever present threat of police.

I grew up in East Tennessee, in wide open rolling green hills, in a very liberal family, with parents who revered the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. but who had no local black friends themselves (Neither did I; none lived in our small Southern town outside of the maximum security prison that lay in my backyard--this is in itself a part of the larger story that Coates marks). I love King's work and legacy. But Coates doesn't appreciate King's message, especially in his youth. Instead, as a young black man, he reveres Malcolm X. From the beginning, he's very clear about the demarcation of legacy, and as a reader, I found a sense of rightness in it. I haven't read Malcolm X's autobiography, "By Any Means Necessary," but I remember watching Spike Lee's 1992 film Malcolm X in my teenage years and being immeasurably moved by his power, pride, and strength; he had the force of a man demanding justice from an unjust world. And from the first pages of Between the World and Me, there is a similar demand, to commit to whole-hearted living outside of and in opposition to the narrative of white supremacy and patriarchy. Indeed, Coates tells his son, this struggle is the only living that is worthy of breath.

The book struck me as a kind of quest. As Coates travels from childhood to adulthood and enters the world of Howard University in Washington D.D., the Mecca, he builds from the philosophical relationship with Malcolm X to a relationship and kinship with many other black authors and thinkers. Over and over again, Coates describes his parents refusing to give him answers to big questions, but instead sending him out into the world to ask and seek. The book is a record of that journey of questions and answers in a world of black men and women, a call and response, even within its very format as a plea and record for Coates own son. For every parent, Between the World and Me offers this powerful lesson: encourage your children to seek truth, and they will be changed by it. They will grow to become bigger than the self who first asked the question. Coates seeks this for his son, as I seek it for my own. And he shares wisdom and pain in the seeking.

"Between the World and Me" squeezed my heart in a painful vise. As a white woman, it's impossible to read this book without a deep sense of shame and self-disgust and copious tears. We white people are deeply responsible for the sins white America has visited on our black brothers and sisters time and time again. The sins that continue to be visited. 

But the most powerful section of the book came in the repetition of the theme of the American Dream, and how that dream was never meant for black bodies. He says, "A society, almost necessarily, begins every success story with the chapter that most advantages itself, and in America, these precipitating chapters are almost always rendered as the singular action of exceptional individuals. In fact, black bodies were the ground on which the Dream was born and on which it is sustained." This echoes a Ted Talk our history teacher at Odyssey shared recently (shared below), in which Hasan Kwame Jeffries reflects that the home of James Madison, Montpelier, the home of the American Constitution and the Bill of Rights, was crafted from bricks that black slave children made. 

This lie, this Dream, is a myth we have all been told. And there are more lies. As Coates says, "Perhaps one person can make a change but not the kind of change that would raise your body to equality with your countrymen." God what a truth to be spoken again and again, especially right now. And here is the thing about truths that go this deep. You just live to them, to their recognition out on the fabric of society. And we are living toward this truth still because the truth will always out.

What does it mean to be woke, that term that's come to mean so much? I don't fully know. I know that to wake up from the Dream, as a white person, if that's even possible means to recognize all the violence that has been done and continues to be done on your behalf. It means I realize I am part and parcel of continuing that violence, even when I don't want to be. It means I have to fight that violence actively in order to deny its lies.

May we heed the warning. 

Again in Coates' words, ​"There is some passing acknowledgement of the bad old days, which by the way, were not so bad as to have any ongoing effect on our present. The mettle that it takes to look away from the horror of our prison system, from police forces transformed into armies, from the long war against the black body, is not forged overnight. This is the practiced habit of jabbing out one's eyes and forgetting the work of one's hands. To acknowledge these horrors means turning away from the brightly rendered version of your country as it has always declared itself and turning toward something murkier and unknown. It is still too difficult for most Americans to do this. But that is your work. It must be, if only to preserve the sanctity of your mind." Coates to his son, but also to every one of us.

Between the World and Me comes with a quote from Toni Morrison on the cover. "This is required reading." True. This is not a book for most young children, but every teen should read it, as should every American. It's a text that will bring you to your knees.


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Book Review: Gideon the Ninth

5/9/2020

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I've spent more than a little time reading over the last few weeks, as North Carolina has been sheltering in place for more than five weeks. Odyssey moved to remote learning on March 17th, the first school in Buncombe County to make the decision to close the physical campus to students. And while my outside "container" has gotten a lot smaller, I've been exploring the multi-verse of recently published fantasy and sci-fi novels. Here's the first of a series of book reviews:
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is a book I didn't want to love. I'll be honest; I haven't ever read a necromancy adventure novel, and truthfully I thought myself happy without having done so. I was wrong, dead wrong, heh, heh. Told from the perspective of a lesbian swordswoman with a penchant for dirty magazines and combat, the book had me in thrall by the end of the first chapter. The world is bloody and well-drawn, peopled by skeletons, secrets, monsters from the deep, and a pack of necromancers all charged with competing to solve God's unsolvable puzzle. The stakes are high, and the writing is relatable and sharp, the voice of Gideon so honest that I am rereading it to spend more time with her, a caustic, embittered character who is at the same time so full of combustive friendship and love that everyone around her is to drawn to her side (and this after not being able to speak for a significant portion of the novel). 

Yes Gideon's voice is unique, but author Tamsyn Muir's plotting is out-of-this-world--literally and figuratively. The book is intricate, well-paced, and as complicated as a series of gymnastic twists, turns, and flourishes. I don't say this often but the last hundred pages I stayed awake in the wee hours of the morning reading, and then when I finished, I immediately went online to find out when the next book comes out. I'm sad to say, the publication of Harrow the Ninth has been pushed back because of the pandemic. So now I have to wait for a chance to see where this incredible story goes next.
​
Yes, this novel surprised me. This may be my favorite quality in a book, to be held in thrall and also not entirely know where I am headed until I arrive. So if your days at home are filled with monotony and the small details of cooking and gardening, then spend a bit of time with this story. Gideon won't disappoint.
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A lot of fantasy, a little bit of science fiction, from an #own voices LGBT author. Be ready for blood, gore, and murder.

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WNC Teen Film Festival

2/18/2020

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It's been a busy spring, but just a quick update here about the WNC Teen Film Festival. This is a new competition sponsored by Odyssey working in partnership with Paul Bonesteel of Bonesteel Films, Brad Hoover of the Asheville School of Film, and Katie Damien from Angry Unicorn Entertainment. The competition closes in just another week, so if you get a chance, encourage teen filmmakers you know to go ahead and make a submission. The Awards ceremony will be held in April at the local Fine Arts Theater.
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Best Practices in Education Podcast

11/9/2019

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I've been working on a couple of new projects this fall, and one of them is the Best Practices in Education Podcast. Odyssey School has a unique professional development structure, instituted by my leadership partner, the lovely Megan Martell. In it, our teachers come together for the weekly faculty meeting and professional development time on Wednesdays, and at the beginning of that block, there's a fifteen-minute slot for a Best Practices Presentation. All teachers sign up for one slot per semester, and we rotate through the line-up across the course of the year. Topics range from things like "Bias in the Math Classroom" to "Relaxation Strategies for Teachers." 

When we first instituted Best Practices, Megan and I were quickly surprised by how inspiring they were. Both we and our teachers got a chance to remember why we had become educators. The presentation began, and faces perked up, curious and ready to learn. Weekly, we were invited to consider an unfamiliar topic or to peer into someone else's classroom to see how they deal with that pesky little problem.

The podcast aims to bring this same experience to a broader audience. Recorded in an interview style, the episodes are quick, just fifteen minutes. I hope you, like me, find them to be the right size to bring a little inspiration and awareness to new areas of teaching--and learning! 

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Bindings of love

8/24/2019

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I'm still working in fits and starts on the new poetry collection, the working title of which is "Bindings of Love." Here's one from that series.
Sister

We are black cats,
sleek and self-possessed,
yellow-eyed and sometimes wild.
We share the secret language
we made up as children:
code words, hand signals, tumbling dirty
skinned knees out of trees.
You are made of the same DNA as me,
so how could I not love you,
and hate you--a little.
Smartass, smart, so damned smart,
the way you see the world is so cock-eyed
roomfuls of people turn their head 180 degrees
to see right, the way you see
with your head on straight.

We are always racing
toward a finish line, you and me.
They told us to stop;
it wasn't a competition.
Nothing was at stake.
But the world is burning out there,
flame eating what is precious to all of us.
I smell smoke, 
and the word fire is on your lips,
like we are one person sometimes
on a mission given to us at birth.

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On Father's Day, for Mom

6/16/2019

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Because this year, your strength and the ability to mourn Dad makes room for us all to feel the same sadness. And because he would love a poem celebrating you, the woman he loved most.
Mother 

Dogs run to you for the pleasure of being touched.

Children seek out your willing companionship;
even seeds burst their dichotomous heart
to grow closer to those small, expressive hands.
You are the weaver at the loom,
black fertile earth receiving sun and rain,
the beginning of all things,
and like the earth,
you bear scars so deep,
they can never be fully excavated,
only worn.

But you know how to overcome, to persist.

Not earth--no, water.
Nothing can mark your core.
You seep into the heart of a thing
just by following your nature.
You are an ocean of love,
whose endless waves lap against my body.
Because now I am the land
(I have grown to become you)
and you are the deep,
defined by wise movement,
still eternal and fathomless to my child’s heart.




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Eldest/Youngest

5/25/2019

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Eldest

Tall and long-limbed, you keep unfolding upward
like a tree, like a backwards bit of origami.
Daily I hold my breath in wonder
that what was hidden in those wide, child's cheeks
and sly, snorting laughter
became such a dark, shaggy-maned horse.
You are prone to wandering alone
in open fields, in crowded streets,
and feeling perfectly at home.

Son you show me all my sharp edges, sharp tongue.
The fault lines of a hundred generations
and their triumphs too
lie in your strong shoulders, your unbent back,
but you are always and first belonging to no one 
 but yourself
a comet, a transiting body, different in every moment.
Your appearance an event not forgotten,
as full of portent as any hopeful astrology.

May there be gifts, my love
a thousand gifts on your path,
despair and love deeply felt,
your light a zenith, a circle of warmth
to draw others into your wisdom, your protection,
your inherent goodness.

Youngest

When you fit against my body
both of us tucked between clean bedsheets,
I know what is real and good in this life.
Wheat-colored curls on your soft boy-shoulders,
tonight you dream of St. George and the dragon,
embodying the holy and savage in turn,
never docile,
becoming more yourself with every breath.
What is God? you ask me one night
with an eye for the profound.
This, I want to say, holding you. This.

We watch your brother toss his black mane to the sky,
a young restless colt on the flag green field.
You run behind him with your arms back, chest forward,
a bird preparing for flight, 
each color rich and deep:
green, blue, gold
your eyes in the light.
​
I watch you take flight,
the feathers of your wings brown and speckled as a hawk.

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As He Lay Dying

3/24/2019

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As He Lay Dying

Rain murmurs on the roof.
Outside, the sky is gray, the trees are gray,
the earth the same.
Even the birds flitting from feeder to limb
seem somber today.

In the woodstove, flames eat damp logs
with a resentful hiss.
On the bed beside me, 
dad is breathing quietly.
I can barely hear him,
his once powerful hands now wretchedly thin,
resting on the newly delicate bone of his hip.

There is an end to all things
I've been told,
but I did not believe it til now.
I thought life rose on and on
a great wave, carrying us forward together.

Watching your body collapse in on itself,
the tumor growing rebelliously strong,
I know the truth.
I believe in winter, 
its return a promise of the end of all things,
​while somewhere a great book closes and is shelved.

I listen to these sounds
with a delicacy I did not know I possess:
the story being untold,
shallow breath,
cold water, seeping into frozen ground.

Many of you know that the past year my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This fall, he went into hospice, and these last weeks have been a time where we've gotten the blessing to surround him with love, patiently helping to usher him forward in the process of dying. It's been revelatory to say the least, and I am still struggling with the shock of knowing, suddenly and for sure, that we all die.

​Death is so much like birth; each one is irrevocably its own event. I'm so thankful to share these moments, really all the moments I've had, in my dad's company.
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Maxims for a Young Woman

12/7/2018

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Picture"Portrait of a Young Woman" Nathan Miller





A student recently asked me to contribute to a Mysteries project by sharing ten things I think a young woman growing up in today's world needs to know. I don't usually give advice, but I dashed off a few thoughts. 


Young women are one of our most valuable resources in today's world. Our future rises and falls on their vision, and their ability to create and sustain what the world will become. 

Heady stuff! Then I realized that another way to think of this assignment was to consider the advice I wish I was given in my teens, if I had been smart enough to listen to one of my elders (I wasn't). 
​

So take these words of wisdom with a grain of salt, meaning consider them salty and well-worn. I've grown a lot since my teen years and most of the time in between has left me battered, world-weary, and a little ornery.


Lessons to Live By:
​
Learn to listen to your gut: trust your intuition and what your body is telling you above all other information. 


Choose habits that make you stronger, healthier, smarter. In the end, it's the things you do every day, consistently, that determine most of who you are. Those habits will guide you when things get tough or fall apart (and they always do).

You are the most important resource you have. Be thrifty, but not stingy, with yourself. 

Make a plan to get to where you want to go. If you don't know how to make a plan, find someone who can see the pathway to the goal. Then walk it. (Then make a new plan :)

Choose friends and lovers who help you become a better person. 

​Learn how to say no, set boundaries, communicate when you don't like something. All women struggle with this, and it's a lesson you will likely have to learn over and over in your life.​
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"Portrait of Young Woman" Lorenzo di Credi
​Be of service to something bigger than yourself. It's the most effective way to be happy. ​

Return to the wild part of yourself every day (or as much as possible). Go beyond should and should not, right and wrong, roles and responsibilities and experience the true ground of your own being.

Be honest. And if you can't be honest, be real about that with the people you love.

Make it a habit to create something of beauty, either in the material or immaterial world. Beauty nourishes the spirit and will keep your heart young.
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"Portrait of a Young Woman" Paul Gaugin
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Try/Fail Cycles

11/23/2018

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I was at Thankgiving Dinner with family and friends last night, bemoaning the life of a teen mom, when my good friend Dolly said, "I'm having to train myself out of using Well, actually on my own daughter."
I must have looked confused, because she finished, "You know, well actually aren't you thankful that you had so much time with your sweet pup before he died."
Or well actually, you'll have another opportunity to try out for that team next year."
I thought about all the ways that I use this same strategy on myself. Well, actually I should be really happy that I had that successful pitch with the literary agent (even though it didn't work out in the end). Well actually, I had so many good years with my dad before he got sick.
Well, actually is a way we, particularly women, try to mitigate the pain we feel over loss.
Don't get me wrong; it's great to not take oneself too seriously. None of us like to fail or lose something--or someone--we love. But when we try to redirect attention too quickly away from our pain, or our children's pain, we miss an opportunity to really feel what it means to not get what you want.
I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Life over the holidays slows down a bit, and over this weekend, I've been realizing how upset I am about my failures. Case in point, I turn 40 this June, and I really believed I would have my first novel published by now. 
Now look, I'm not wallowing. I'm busy at work on my third manuscript. In the class I'm currently taking, a NY Times bestselling author  recently told me she had to write twelve books before her first was published, so I know I'm in good company. (Well actually, you've come far in such a short period of time. You published in local mags. You're starting your own podcast. You've even had someone ask for your full novel before saying no.) 
But rejection--failure--stings. I cry. I feel utterly hopeless.
Why is this valuable you might ask? One word: resiliency. 
I counsel my students (and sometimes their parents) to do this very thing. Fail often! I love to say. I'm not sure they understand that I speak from a place of experience. I haven't got it all figured out yet. I have two children who stump me on a weekly basis. I still haven't written that business plan. As an artist, I've been rejected hundreds of times. Celebrated, only a handful.

Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude. This year I'm thankful for my failures, for all the things that aren't working in my life. For eating too many carbohydrates and gaining that extra five pounds back. For not pulling off the birthday party my youngest son wanted. For forgetting sooooooooo many things. For that really personal rejection letter. And not reaching all of my career goals.

​Sometimes tears are the only companions on a lonely journey. I'm welcoming mine.
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    Coranna Adams is a writer, filmmaker, and educator from Asheville, North Carolina.

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