Tender

by Toi Derricotte

Toi Derricotte’s fourth collection of poetry. Tender   probes sexuality, spirituality, emotion, child abuse, mother hatred, and the physical and psychological ravages of violence. These poems are raw and upsetting in subject matter, yet extremely readable.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Toi Derricotte is the author of The Undertaker’s Daughter (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011) and four earlier collections of poetry, including Tender, winner of the 1998 Paterson Poetry Prize. Her literary memoir, The Black Notebooks (W.W. Norton), received the 1998 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Non-Fiction and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her honors include, among many others, the 2012 Paterson Poetry Prize for Sustained Literary Achievement, the 2012 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, two Pushcart Prizes and the Distinguished Pioneering of the Arts Award from the United Black Artists.

Derricotte is the co-founder of Cave Canem Foundation (with Cornelius Eady), Professor Emerita at the University of Pittsburgh and a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Reviews

[Divine Angubua · Rating 5 out of 5]

there’s a tragic and sometimes sinister force to these poems. Derricotte’s ability to abstract blackness to simultaneously embarrass the racial construct as well as project its immense terribleness scratched a deep, shy itch in me. The form is largely clipped, sharp, and all the more piercing. The way Derricotte writes depression, hatred, intimate violence, and longing…every word prods, pokes, pierces etc etc

[Seth Shimelfarb-Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tremendous collection. One that embraces the interstitial space between self perception and forced perception of self. So raw and fleshy. So attuned to the erotic. Hard to read at times. Shoutout Naomi Extra for subliminally reminding me to read this.

[Haja · Rating 5 out of 5]

raw, visceral collection about violence and tenderness as the antidote. every poem in this collection is magic

« Even in the poems you write, if you look back years later, the tears are still there, unfinished. »

[Courtney Ferriter · Rating 4 out of 5]

** 4 stars **

Derricotte notes in the preface to this collection that it is not meant to be read and interpreted in a linear fashion. Instead, she writes, the title poem "Tender" is the center of the collection, and each subsection (there are seven sections in all) radiates out from that central hub.

I enjoyed the poems here overall. It was interesting to see the various ways in which they connected to the title poem. My favorite lines were from in the poem "The Body Awakening":
Those indications are
not to be gotten rid of, every
cinch in my breathing, every awareness of the rivers of
nerve is a song of my self.

This is the first volume of Derricotte's I've ever read, and it makes me interested to read more of her work. Would recommend if you enjoy contemporary poetry, especially confessional poetry.

[Jan Priddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first met Toi Derricotte at The Flight of the Mind long ago. She read from this collection and I shuddered and sobbed in an audience of women. I do not believe I had ever reacted to text in quite that manner. I was overwhelmed.

At that same time, Derricotte developing Cave Canem. She talked about the project and was off to attend to it once our week passed. Yesterday, I attended a craft talk at the Pacific University MFA residency in Seaside, Oregon, and there was Vievee Frances talking about Cave Canem and ascendent and descent trajectories in poetry. It was a powerful talk and I immediately recalled this collection.

The result is I am inspired to read poetry for a time. As soon as I complete Lucia Perillo, I will retrieve my copy of Tender.

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a "seven-spoked wheel" although the spokes are both connected and not. The poems in this wheel almost appear to follow a narrative and chronicle a kind of poet's odyssey. They range from ecstasy to regressed introspection. It is transfiguring to see Derricotte move onwards only to return to an earlier stage. Everything happens but nothing changes. The poem is itself.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely powerful depictions of micro-aggression, confronting the pain of familial trauma, racial trauma, and carving a space for oneself in-between worlds that deny you. In the creative lineage of Claudia Rankine's Don't Let Me Be Lonely and Citizen.

[Lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this. The preface instructs readers to imagine the seven sections of the collection as spokes radiating out from the central, titular poem "Tender."

Parts of this are very difficult to read (child abuse, the legacy of slavery). Beautiful language and imagery.

[Danni Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was excited to find this assigned for a poetry class I took this semester, after having read the author's memoir The Black Notebooks just a few months ago. Stunning work on every level.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toi Derricotte has an amazing ability to link the personal with the historical and have it work. Her poems talk about violence in history (slavery), violence in families and violence in society. Some of the recurring themes in her poems remind me of Sharon Olds.

Some of her poems read like journal entries. Others are in a more distanced voice. Yet, violence in one aspect of humanity affects all others. Individually some of the poems in this collection might not stand on their own. However, the collective effect of "Tender" is to make the reader see events from many perspectives at once, which is not an easy thing for a writer to accomplish.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The preface: "Tender is not to be read in a linear fashion. Rather, it is a seven-spoked wheel, with the poem "Tender" as the hub, each "spoke" or subdivision radiating out from that center."

What Einstein said is true--everything slows down the farther you get from your mother. (13)

"Just keep trying," my father'd say just before he'd strike me. And I did. I kept trying to get beaten. (14)

What to do with my arms? They coil out of my body. // ... They branch & spit. // ... until I fit in them, / or they in me. (33-34)

& the waves / shuddered like some woman / eager to be pleased. (68)

(The clitoris) stands alone on its thousand branches. (81)

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorites were "invisible dreams" and "dead baby speaks".