A letter to Nina Simone, from a Nina Simone.
Ms Simone, someone has written a love note to you. Of this, you probably aren't surprised. Ms Simone, I imagine you in a comfortable chair. Looking over the water and understanding that you have been receiving love notes for as long as you allowed. I know there’s more to what we’ve gotten to see of you.
I can imagine a house filled with the ancestors. The ways Jeffers calls upon the past, both writers like Gwendolyn Brooks, and Sharon Olds, and her family- like her father.
It is the power of memory that runs through this work. And it is through memory that Jeffers examines the land in which she finds herself. Memory serves as an ecology within itself. On the plane of memory is where this work operates and I find myself comfortable here.
There is a deep connection to family and the land that is expressed as Jeffers moves through them. She travels, back to a home she feels disconnected to. She travels in communication with both literary and familial ancestors. It conveys a heaviness, the weight of remembering runs deep in the current of this work.
Yesss Kimani! I loved this!
ReplyDeleteI agree very much as well that memory serves as an ecology in itself, a living place filled with recollections of the past as new things are thrown in there and effect the ecologoical memory system.
Jeffers gives us many accounts from her memory, and I loved how she shaped her striking poems from memory and much more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgoRc3GoXo8
ReplyDeleteKimani, this is an incredibly beautiful response. Not only does your deep connection to the work shine through, but also your own talent and creativity. I love how you reflect on memory and connection. I definitely got the sense that HFJ was in conversation with the past, the land, ancestors. Thank you so much for sharing!
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