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(since July 07)
Mendi's bookshelves
read (206)
currently-reading (3)
to-read (336)
poetry (51)
new-gift-or-purchase (41)
to-finish (39)
taught (32)
artresearch (18)
first-books-poetry (16)
m-and-k-citations (16)
to-read-soon (15)
see all bookshelves »
currently-reading (3)
to-read (336)
poetry (51)
new-gift-or-purchase (41)
to-finish (39)
taught (32)
artresearch (18)
first-books-poetry (16)
m-and-k-citations (16)
to-read-soon (15)
Mendi's friends (77)
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Tara 733 books 76 friends |
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Barbara 464 books 90 friends |
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Susan Rich 89 books 95 friends |
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Leigh 267 books 23 friends |
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Lynnell 11 books 55 friends |
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Sydney 607 books 61 friends |
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Aimee 81 books 91 friends |
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Renee 190 books 16 friends |
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Cherryl 899 books 117 friends |
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Amy 99 books 1267 friends |
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Hiram 84 books 31 friends |
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Christopher 59 books 160 friends |
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Jilly 490 books 195 friends |
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Catherine 360 books 203 friends |
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Danny 81 books 229 friends |
Mendi Lewis Obadikeauthor profile |
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| website | http://www.blacknetart.com | |||
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about this author
When I was white I was a man. My hair was wavy and feathered. I wore a cowboy hat. (It was the Seventies. I was a stud.) I went to bars and picked up girls. I could have any one I saw. They bought me drinks and I drank them then took my favorites home to my waterbed. I never doubted this was me. (Even though I was a small, black girl watching myself over my shoulder.) I knew what to whisper in a woman’s ear, how to wear those bones under my skin, and did not need to see my face or recognize my own soft voice. ("One Black Girlhood", from Armor and Flesh) |
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books by Mendi Lewis Obadikecombine editionsavg rating: 4.33 | 6 ratings | 1 distinct work
* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, perform a search. |
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Mendi's writing
Armor and Flesh (Poetry)
1 chapters
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updated 08/04/2007 02:49AM
description:
"Mendi Obadike pares her poems down to the stark, dark places where self and selves unfurl, confront, and recombine. She understands the art of distillation, both formal and emotional. Yet there is nothing reserved in these rich poems, which emanate from a deep understanding of unsentimental, polyphonic human complexity."
- Elizabeth Alexander
"These cleanly-wrought poems turn the world upside down, inside out. They confirm that nothing is simple. Flesh is complex, relentless in its appearance and changes. Like language (and the glad amazement in the sweat and tears of others) flesh could not long survive without the intricate armor of luck, imagination, and grace, which are the poet's special province."
- Houston A. Baker Jr.
"Language clean as a scalpel opens you to worlds of mysterious, powerful, terrifying life like a surgeon opens the body and reveals the great rivers inside."
- Toi Derricotte
Mendi is currently reading
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06/11
Mendi
is currently reading:
Guests Go in to Supper (Paperback) by Sumner Carnahan bookshelves: currently-reading |
my rating:
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06/11
Mendi
is currently reading:
Warrior for Gringostroika: Essays, Performance Texts, and Poetry (Paperback) by Guillermo Gomez-Pena bookshelves: currently-reading |
my rating:
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Mendi said:
"The older I get, the more I appreciate the wisdom, clarity, and delicate balance of humor and deep worry I find in Gomez-Pena's work. I am so grateful he has chosen to do it.
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03/25
Mendi
is currently reading:
Kiss Me With the Mouth of Your Country (chap) by Amy King (Goodreads author!) bookshelves: currently-reading |
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Mendi's recent updates (rss)
Mendi's favorite quotes
"Poetry is an act of peace. Peace goes into the making of a poet as flour goes into the making of bread. "
— Pablo Neruda
— Pablo Neruda
""Poetry is language playing with itself." "
— Harryette Mullen
— Harryette Mullen
"In seeking specific technical information, we discover that behind the hysteria of male expertise lies the magic world of our unmade art."
— Le Tigre
— Le Tigre
"I always get a little bit irritated when people talk about 'bringing poetry to the people' especially those poet - performers who seem to assume their audience hasn't read anything, as though 'the people' were some ignorant mass incapable of taste. 'Bringing poetry to the people'? Speaking as a people, I go out and get it as long as its available. When people hear any kind of excellence or panache in the use of language in pop songs or movies they notice it, they talk about it. That's because it's available - inescapable, in fact - while my local library is shutting down."
— Michael Donaghy
— Michael Donaghy
Mendi's groups (recent posts)
¡ POETRY !
— 872 members
— last activity 4 hours, 9 min ago
No pretensions: just poetry.
Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to re...more
READING AS WRITERS
— 341 members
— last activity 5 hours, 8 min ago
Those lines that startle you, endings that follow you for days, maybe a style that disturbs you but you can't stop reading. Discuss it all here.
Literary Fiction by People of Color
— 119 members
— last activity 12 hours, 32 min ago
This can include genre fiction that is literary (e.g. speculative fiction, historical fiction, etc.), as long as it's written by a person of color (Af...more
A Place for Poets
— 207 members
— last activity 1 day ago, 10:47PM
This group is for those who believe in the cross-cultural necessity and permanence of poetry. Share and discuss your favourite poets and the writing p...more
Guilty Pleasures
— 342 members
— last activity 2 days ago, 01:54PM
Forum for discussing/recommending queer texts, open to the idea that the definition of "queer" is still in process. Interests in all genre...more
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