{"id":744,"date":"2023-01-03T18:13:38","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T23:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=744"},"modified":"2023-01-03T18:13:38","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T23:13:38","slug":"review-of-casual-conversation-by-renia-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/?p=744","title":{"rendered":"Review of Casual Conversation by Renia White"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Renia White. Casual Conversation. <\/em>BOA Editions, 2022. 72 pgs. $17.00.<\/p>\n

If one element most characterizes Renia White\u2019s first collection, it is voice. The poems in Casual Conversation <\/em>are, on the one hand, conversational, but they are not, on the other hand, plain spoken or by any means flat. The voice is musical and assertive, intelligent and individualized. The poems address events that sometimes occur so frequently that conversation about them can seem casual, ordinary, common\u2014but ought not be. Conversation about a lynching for example. Or a poem that initially seems to be about hot sauce but shifts to an exploration of race. Why do so many conversations in America need to turn to race some people ask. Because everything in America\u2014let\u2019s admit it\u2014everything in America is about race.<\/p>\n

The first poem in the collection, \u201chearsay,\u201d opens with that most casual of expressions, \u201cOK.\u201d The speaker is responding to a companion who has revealed a bit of information, so the reader enters in medias res. The speaker provides just enough context to situate the reader, but only just enough, for the reader remains just a little off-balance:<\/p>\n

OK so you are telling me the girl dared say
\n\u201cI can\u2019t just let you have my life,
\nnot like that, your honor\u201d<\/p>\n

Occurring as it does at the end of the line and stanza, \u201cyour honor\u201d stuns the reader\u2014we know now that the setting is likely a courtroom, and this conversation isn\u2019t nearly as \u201ccasual\u201d as we might have assumed. A girl is talking back to a judge. The stakes are high. The following stanza doesn\u2019t reveal why exactly this girl has found herself before a judge; instead, it reminds us of a much longer history and much bigger context. She isn\u2019t standing before a judge simply because of any crime she might or might not have committed. She\u2019s standing before a judge because she lives in a particular place that has developed through its own peculiar history:<\/p>\n

and he sentenced her to a bedazzled tightrope
\nand a room without a window, and a son
\nthat doesn\u2019t know her name?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 middle passage
\nfor this? think the girl doesn\u2019t know her own
\nshame? given that face she wears? think she doesn\u2019t
\nknow where she is ain\u2019t where she was put down
\nto begin with?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 that her first season was
\nsomeone else\u2019s harvest?<\/p>\n

In this stanza, Renia White chooses to reveal information strategically, and she exploits diction and lineation to enhance these choices. The line break following \u201cson\u201d is particularly effective, delaying as it does the most important detail. Then we have \u201cmiddle passage\u201d seeming to hang out on its own, as if the event it signifies were some kind of isolated event. White readers can rely on their privilege to ignore racialized trauma whenever it gets too uncomfortable or too tiring. It was a long time ago, after all, wasn\u2019t it? The speaker insists that the past isn\u2019t past, for \u201cmiddle passage\u201d isn\u2019t simply a phrase tacked on to a line otherwise concerned with a single individual. \u201cmiddle passage \/ for this?\u201d the speaker asks. Her ancestors survived that trauma, in other words, for this? As the stanza continues, it opens up in order to position this girl\u2019s experience within a broader context: \u201cher first season was \/ someone else\u2019s harvest?\u201d<\/p>\n

In its final lines, the poem challenges assumptions about privilege. Those who have it continually fail to comprehend why others don\u2019t. That failure, of course, is a component of privilege.<\/p>\n

some people get to want and need
\nand be met in it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 some just the mouth
\njust the teeth<\/p>\n

some eat and they say
\n\u201cwhy all the hunger?\u201d<\/p>\n

This poem succeeds because it reveals just enough, challenging readers to consider their own complicity in the type of events the poem describes.<\/p>\n

Several of the poems in Casual Conversation <\/em>force readers to confront their role within these conversations. Am I part of \u201cus\u201d or \u201cthem\u201d? When we say \u201cus,\u201d what are we ignoring about others\u2019 experiences? \u201cun-\u201c addresses these questions most directly. The third stanza reveals how pronouns like \u201cus\u201d camouflage difference:<\/p>\n

this is our undoing. woman beside me in the caf\u00e9
\nsays this massacre is so like us. I think of the \u201cus\u201d
\nthis takes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 then,
\nshe might not mean \u201cour\u201d us, <\/em>maybe their <\/em>us.<\/p>\n

Maybe the white woman means white people when she says \u201cus,\u201d implicitly acknowledging racial responsibility, rather than citing a more amorphous American us that suggests the speaker and the white woman beside her aren\u2019t all that different. The stanzas that follow interrogate but do not resolve this confusion.<\/p>\n

but maybe we got an us too: me, her,
\neveryone who decides to have it.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s what she\u2019s hoping for\u2014distance,
\nsomething to comb out of herself through.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

you know how you can undo a whole home
\nwith the unlatching of a window? howl from the pit
\nbeneath it? say \u201cwe did this\u201d and \u201cwe allowed this\u201d<\/p>\n

and the girl beside you will forget you are white, maybe
\nwill not query your us-ing. will not ask which \u201cus\u201d<\/p>\n

of this country<\/p>\n

The metaphor of the opened-up home\u2014open for what? escape, to release pressure from its own looming implosion, open for burglary or looting\u2014will dominate the final section of the poem. Meanwhile, though, White has uniquely shifted perspective, entering the mind of the speaker\u2019s white companion: \u201cthe girl beside you will forget you are white, maybe \/ will not query your us-ing.\u201d The \u201cyou\u201d here has become the white woman, hoping the speaker will forget that she, the white woman, is white, will accept the white woman\u2019s \u201cus\u201d as including them both. Again, the line break at \u201cmaybe,\u201d allowing that adverb to modify the clause that precedes it as well as the one that follows, is crucial. \u201cMaybe\u201d conveys some slight hope while simultaneously undercutting it. The white woman, perhaps, wants to climb out of the open window of her white house, but she can\u2019t quite manage it. For the house isn\u2019t just a building, and individuals are caught up in systems that individuals can\u2019t dismantle. The poem concludes with another question:<\/p>\n

\u2026still the churches burn, the window\u2019s open,
\nclosing it will not save us, another window won\u2019t save us.<\/p>\n

who is us and what are we and what do you do
\nwith an open thing<\/p>\n

that can\u2019t be fixed by closing?<\/p>\n

On its own, the question is discouraging. But the fact that it can be asked, can even be thought, is perhaps a little less discouraging.<\/p>\n

Casual Conversation <\/em>is both important and good. These poems are successful because of White\u2019s skill with craft and mastery of voice. They are important because of their themes, their refusal to look away from the horrors of the American past or its present. This book\u2019s literary accomplishment and cultural significance make it a necessary collection for the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Renia White. Casual Conversation. BOA Editions, 2022. 72 pgs. $17.00. If one element most characterizes Renia White\u2019s first collection, it is voice. The poems in Casual Conversation are, on the one hand, conversational, but they are not, on the other hand, plain spoken or by any means flat. The voice is musical and assertive, intelligent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[60,19,59],"class_list":["post-744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-areviewaweek","tag-casual-conversation","tag-lynn-domina","tag-renia-white"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":746,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions\/746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynndomina.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}