Stranger Here Below

tina — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Stranger Here Below tells the stories of three generations of women whose lives are connected by a single institution and a changing America.

Amazing Grace “Maze” Jansen and Mary Elizabeth “M. E.” Cox meet at Berea College in Kentucky in 1961. Maze is a poor white mountain girl and M. E. is one of just a few African American students at the college. The young women come from difficult backgrounds and both have mothers who have struggled. Hinnefeld tells the stories of the four women, mothers and daughters, and a fifth woman named Sister Georgia. Sister Georgia went to Berea College decades earlier and is now the last surviving Shaker in Pleasant Hill, a Shaker community near Berea College.

Maze and M. E. are college roommates and scholarship students, but they are not necessarily fast friends. M. E. was raised by a stern preacher father and by Sarah, a mother who retreats into a strange world where she is incapable of simple communication. Both her race and her family background make M. E. unsure of her place in the world and she seems unable to enjoy her musical talents or her friendship with Maze. Still, Maze pursues their friendship doggedly, inviting M. E. to spend time with her at her mother's home. Maze's mother Vista raised Maze on her own, her husband having abandoned her after one night of marriage. Vista is now Sister Georgia's caretaker and the two young women stay with Vista in Sister Georgia's home.

Together the girls watch Sister Georgia perform her Shaker rituals, her dancing, and her shaking and they go through a Shaker ledger from a century ago that contains herbal remedies and recipes. Sister Georgia is old, alone, and the last member of a religion of celibates. What the two young women do not know about Sister Georgia is that when she was in college she fell in love with a black man, but her father, an abolitionist, forbade her to marry him. Her life, like and Sarah’s, is one marked by loss.

Mary Elizabeth is a talented pianist who was courted by the university for her musical abilities. School officials seemed to imply that it was unusual to see such talent in an African American. M. E. is confused by their attentions and turns away from her music. But in the early 1960’s, Maze imagines a different kind of America. She dreams of a twentieth century communal living experience that would nurture people like the five women of this book.

It's a grand scheme, and this book covers a lot of territory in few pages. Hinnefeld begins in 1968, with Maze writing a letter to her missing friend Mary Elizabeth. The next chapter takes us back to 1872 and the birth of Sister Georgia. The lives of all five women unfold in a nonlinear fashion, in isolated sections, and these sections weave in and out of the book's present and deep into the past. Perhaps this weaving back and forth in time reflects the fractured nature of these women's lives. Sometimes it's hard to put the pieces together, just as it's hard for the women to keep their own lives in order. As readers we have to work for it, but in the end I think it's worth the effort. I cared about these women and the pressures they stood up to in their struggles to make themselves whole.

Written by: Natasha Bauman, November 23rd 2010

Seedlip and Sweet Apple: Poems

admin — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Arra Lynn Ross

Milkweed Editions

Seedlip and Sweet Apple is a poetry collection that blooms with the voice and life of Mother Ann Lee, the founder of the Christian sect deemed the Shakers for their prayerful and "ecstatic" dance. Her followers eschew marriage and reproduction, living in brotherly and sisterly communities devoted to harmony and God. The author, Arra Lynn Ross, has created a cohesive story that will capture you even if you have the barest knowledge of the real life of the religious leader. (For those of you who do want to do some prep work, you can gain reference from the PBS site American Stories, or even Wikipedia.)

In such a slim volume, there is so much depth. Ross plays with form and function, mixing prose with poetry, shaping Revolution-era newspaper articles into stanzas and weaving together bits of Gospels, Shaker writings, William Blake and even Sappho into the Mother Ann's narrative. The notes at the end of the book are a must-read, as they help the reader engage and decode the poetry even further. She also provides a list of her source material, and by the end of the reading, the reader may be tempted to read more on this incredible historical figure.

The poems themselves shine alone (in fact, "Mother Ann Tells Lucy What Gave Her Joy" was featured by the American Academy of Poets as a Poem-A-Day in March, a well-deserved honor). As a collection, the poems form an intense meditation on intimacy. It examines the relationship between lovers, siblings, and a believer and her faith. There are moments of breathtaking intimacy, where the reader feels almost intrusive in the moments of revelation. In "Abraham Left Me on a Thursday," Ross captures at once the joy and loss of the dissolution of Mother Ann's arranged marriage:

"They'll say he was a bad man, but I know how hard it is to live with God. In the flesh, in the flesh, where are you Ann? You're a spirit banging at your own rib cage. [...] he danced me across the room, laughing, the heat from his grip burning my side. I shook my head, No, Abraham, no, and he stumbled. We fell sideways to the floor, tangled, my cheekbone pressed to the wing of his shoulder, the rough weave of his hemp shirt. I could smell sweat soaking the cloth, strong with fear and sadness."

Ross doesn't canonize Mother Ann. Instead, she reveals the human being she was, rife with complex paradoxes: disgust and love, fervor and patience, the dichotomy of the spiritual and corporeal entities. It's a work powerful in voice and craft.

I also want to take a few words to acknowledge the Milkweed Editions, the non-profit publisher of Seedlip and Sweet Apple. I worked briefly in the world of publishing and am compelled to spread their message: "Milkweed Editions publishes with the intention of making a humane impact on society, in the belief that literature is a transformative art uniquely able to convey the essential experiences of the human heart and spirit. In an increasingly consolidated and bottom-line driven publishing world, [the reader's] support allows [Milkweed Editions] to select and publish books on the basis of their literary quality and message." If you care about the value of our national literature, Seedlip and Sweet Apple is well worth the investment.

Written by: Jo Ristow, July 16th 2010