Reflections on Morgan Parker

I sat down with this book with a highlighter in hand and had to remind myself not to highlight each and every word. I’m struck by Parker’s use of spacing out her words. She starts lines with “&” and leaves long, intentional, heavy pauses in the middle of lines. Breaks up a sentence where you might not expect but makes it feel so right. I sense that she really knows what she’s doing, really knows how to arrange her words for maximum effect.

I found a lot of cleverness and humor in her work in addition to the dark, the painful, the terrible. She is certainly not all one thing. []I appreciated her layers and layers of cultural references, past and present. In “ALL THEY WANT IS MY MONEY MY PUSSY MY BLOOD” she says, “I am a little modern to a fault” (2). She mentions Beyoncé, of course, and also Obama, Wife Swap, Malcolm X, “scrolling through profile pics” (36). But she mixes these things throughout her words, it never feels put on. Her words seem so honest, even the more “poetic” phrases never read to me as artificial or with any kind of pretense.

“We Don’t Know When We Were Opened (Or, The Origin of the Universe)” says in its subtitle that it’s after Mickalene Thomas, a contemporary visual artist who does these huge stunning paintings that are often portraits of Black women. Oprah set in rhinestones - “Jeweled lips, we’re rich” (14). A floral, pattered, colorful collage of Solange.  I love that Parker is in conversation with Thomas. These two contemporary creatives in dialogue through their art. It seems a fitting pair.

Another poem, “Black Woman with Chicken” is written after Carrie Mae Weems. Weems is another amazing artist, a photographer, who is famous for her “kitchen table series” which broke ground for representing domestic, quite narrative scenes of a Black American home. I google Image searched Weems photos to look at them in the next tab while I read: “Type A / in the kitchen wanting / more” (34).

I think what I’m thinking about is how it really excites me that Parker makes so many connections. I love a poem about visual art. I love different types of art in dialogue.

Some of my favorite short lines:

“curve into the morning like an almond” (11).

“My lipstick reflecting in the olive trees” (38).

“When moon rises peach / over Mom’s kitchen table” (47).

Maybe it’s because I’m new to serious study of poetry, but I found myself blown away by these kinds of lovely lines that don’t really make logical sense, but just make so much sense at the same time. Like curve into the morning like an almond, yes! Somehow she has painted this picture for me where I totally get it and have never thought about an almond so tenderly before.

Some more that I had to highlight.

“I am very / complicated and so is Beyoncé” (54).

“When I get to heaven I’m going / to wear my good bra” (57).

“It’s almost too / obvious to interpret, like teeth / or pomegranates, or ocean” (55)

“Greetings I hope this finds you well / Ignoring the size of the moon and kissing” (59).

I loved her dark humor, I love that she is writing about the bra she’ll wear in heaven. Overall I am just so blown away by this collection of work. It all fits together and one can trace themes throughout; pop culture, sex and sexuality, New York City, work, identity, oppression. But at the same time each poem stands on its own two legs. I know I will be reading this book again and again and passing it around to everyone I can.