Even the Hollow My Body Made Is Gone

New Poets of America

by Janice N. Harrington

“Memory and its embodiment in a colloquial, yet highly wrought musical language are what originally drew me to Harrington’s manuscript and what continues to pull me back. We learn the story of Lillian and Webster and their children and grandchildren, a black family living a hardscrabble life in the rural South more than sixty years ago. Set on the cusp of the Civil Rights era, the poems chronicle a way of life that has long since vanished.”—Elizabeth Spires, from the foreword Janice N. Harrington is an award-winning children’s book author and a nationally recognized storyteller. She works as a librarian in Champaign, Illinois.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

Harrington’s writing reflects her beginnings in rural Alabama and her life in the Midwest. A former librarian and professional storyteller, Harrington now teaches creative writing in the Department of English at the University of Illinois.

-from janiceharrington.com

Reviews

[Stacie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous poems of an African-American family’s experience in the southern United States in the mid-20th. The grownup visions of Going North and more.

[Katie Schmid · Rating 5 out of 5]

a perfect book

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

clothes will always seek dimension (21)

stooped / beneath the day's hem (22)

Webster sighs skeins / of cloth smoke (29)

Believe the body / is a screen door (30)

memory / has a fly's dumb enthusiasm (30)

a hound keens / one long, longing vowel (36)

believe the stars are bright beetles / tied to strings of light (41)

spanning arms that make a human cradle (48)

a rind of light (63)

the lullaby of cows (68)

garnets of juice (76)

Mulatto: of mixed breed, from the Spanish for mule. / Anything that cannot reproduce itself. // Vision is born of violence. All your memories / are mulattoes. (76-77)

A favorite poem: "Henry Ossawa Tanner's 'The Banjo Lesson,' 1893"

Another: "Turning"

I also enjoyed the landscape of "A Colored Woman Cannot Sing."

[Liz Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

The power of Janice Harrington's words lies in the sensory details that lead us easily inside the stories she tells. Harrington plays around with form and structure without ever losing sight of the people she is telling us about. It's very hard to pull lines out here as the poems need to be read together to fully grasp the context. They tell the story of a black family living in the south and follows their eventual migration north.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful collection of poetry.
My favorite poems are ‘Turning’ which is about a child who ties a string to a June Bug leg, ‘They all Sang’ which shows various songs and mixes child’s rhymes (for example, Little Sally and London Bridge) within the poems and ’How We Lie in Grass’ from which comes the book’s title.

[Tim Lepczyk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the poems in this collection really resonate. The collection falls under the categories of feminist and African American literature. This is an area I usually don't seek out, but it was refreshing reading something outside of what I normally do.

Check it out, it's worth the time.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've actually misplaced this book. If you find my copy sitting around some where, please let me know.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful language tied to compelling narratives. My new favorite book of poems.