You're The Most Beautiful Thing That Happened

by Arisa White

Poetry. LGBTQIA Studies. California Interest. African & African American Studies. Women's Studies. Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Lesbian Poetry. Angular, smart, and fearless, Arisa White's newest collection takes its titles from words used internationally as hate speech against gays and lesbians, reworking, re-envisioning, and re- embodying language as a conduit for art, love, and understanding. "To live freely, observantly as a politically astute, sensually perceptive Queer Black woman is to be risk taker, at risk, a perceived danger to others and even dangerous to/as oneself," writes poet Tracie Morris. "White's attentive word substitutions and range of organized forms, lithe anecdotes, and disturbed resonances put us in the middle of living a realized, intelligent life of the senses." YOU'RE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING THAT HAPPENED works through intersectional encounters with gender, identity, and human barbarism, landing deftly and defiantly in beauty.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, The United States Of America, Cultural Studies

99 pages, Paperback

First published October 21, 2016

Reviews

[Emma Ramos · Rating 5 out of 5]

You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened by Arisa White is a poetry collection I wish existed when I was a teenager. If asked to describe the collection in a nutshell, I’d describe it as a combination of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Ani DiFranco’s “Not a Pretty Girl,” and Adrienne Rich’s A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far.

White begins her collection with a meditation on language.

There are little words
that can fit in little places
if you say them small enough. (p.11)

This poem, titled “Tail,” is a gateway to a collection that reminds us that words and language, in general, can be reworked and reclaimed.

In You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, Arisa White takes us on a poetic journey through the world as it is experienced by many of us in the LGBTQ community. Many of the poems are titled with words and phrases that are considered offensive by many. One poem, for example, is titled “Mashing Cookies.” The expression, according to Urban Dictionary, refers to, “When two females rub their hotboxes together with their legs in a scrissor-like formation.” The action of “Mashing Cookies” isn’t so different from heteronormative intercourse. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the act is made to sound perverse when, in fact, there is nothing perverse about it. In her poem titled “Mashing Cookies,” White writes,

Not all of us are lesbians on this island circled by orcas.
We’ve come because we’ve been nesting stories,
hollow voices that need time to season. We all need
to loot our minds for the woman who surrendered to wolves. (p. 68)

As with many of the other poems in You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, White challenges the language that has sullied the physical experience. Hopefully, readers will think twice before perpetuating stigma when referring to non-heteronormative sexuality.

You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened is a powerful collection that succeeds in empowering those of us who have been silenced by stigma. It is a collection that could bring comfort and a sense of empowerment to anyone who has encountered prejudice because of their sexuality.

[Mery ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5

Lambda Literary Award Finalist

Full of striking language rooted in the senses in a rare and refreshing way. White summarizes the remarkable, painful, profound, lonely, sensual experiences of Blackness, queerness, and womanhood.

BUT...

It turns out that it’s really lesbian poetry, which is fine, and not QUEER poetry and it also includes some language that is trans antagonistic WHICH IS NOT FINE.

[miriam campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

favourite poems: trip the light fantastic, comrades, little deer, when they say, kokobar, glass, closet case, manly shoes, after watching obama …, violet mary

i love being a black lesbian

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excerpt:

You think / my universe has gone dim? It is hellish / bright if you’re willing.

(from “Queen”)

[Michelle Stockard Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fearless and powerful. That's the only way to describe this. An important volume of poetry, especially in light of what continues to happen hear in the U.S., and worldwide, in regards to the LGBTQ community. I commend Arisa White on her bravery and poignancy.

Of course, I am drawn to poems centering on family and injustice. My first favorite was "Auntie." The story of a family member whose "sexuality" is secreted away and always glossed over or embellished.

Auntie

I listen for you in these moments of touch,
declare through your friends what is not said.

I inventory looks, languishing on the sweet end
of a woman's backside, her body, their eyes silk over
air we just breathed, blink and their lids rest
like water to shore, relishing as one does a kiss.

This orchestrated silence is viral; it heats
all parts until my throats fevers.
How do you manage this, auntie?

When your friends are around, your hands language
near her to confirm she's close: on her forearm,
the small of her back, you hold often,
fingering notes to release perfect sound.

Together since the year of my birth,
yet you are pantomime in the wings
of our family's speech.

Why do you arch in shadows,
accept the shade eclipsing her face?

The holidays would be more gay
if we didn't ghost in dead air,

in wooden boxes, letters folded over and over again, in locked rooms

where shames are secretly arranged--

My second favorite "Gun(n)," which is dedicated to Sakia Gunn, a 15-year-old who was murdered for being gay in Newark, New Jersey in May 2003. I hear of such things occurring in our world and it breaks my heart. If Sakia would have had a gun, "I wold not know you" (line 2).

Gun(n)
for Sakia Gunn

Sakia, if you had the weapon of your last name,
I would not know you. This steady scrape
against paper to transport fecund lament, never.
If in your hands the pearl-handled gun

my stepfather kept in the broom closet--
I'd give you the aim I practiced at twelve.
"Home is where the heart is"marks an
average man's forehead and the trashcan
is somewhere near his jewels.

If you brought me roses in high school,
wrapped in newspaper to protect me from thorns,
I would take them, and wash ink from my fingers
in the jeans and jersey flood of your girlboy body.
Let me be your girl.

4-evah 2 eternity onto my back.
Your finger's ballpoint end, again and again
practices the hear over i, and into the morning
we stash whispers where over thread, thread crosses.
I promise

I have impeccable aim.
Pulling a trigger loosens mustangs
in your veins. Piss into my mortar--an old war
recipe makes bullets complete. Let your shower
wash an asshole from the streets.

If you're shocked you life requires this exchange,
come into my arms, Sakia. Come into my arms.


As described in the synopsis, the titles of these poems are from words used internationally as hate speech against gays and lesbians (there are notes at the end of the book explaining each definition). White's re-envisioning of the language to share "art, love, and understanding" is a touching tribute to a community that deserves so much love. Bravo!

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really struck me with its beauty and its fearlessness. White captures love, sensuality, identity, grief, fear, and gratitude in this powerful collection of poems. I was moved by her imagery, by her appreciation of the female form, by her word choice, by her rhythm.

2 particular passages from the collection stood out to me:

From "Warm Water":
I am at your doorstep. Each tear opens us up to our promise—
bring the wake of your hand to my cheek. What I need today is
your sunshine that pulls me from earth.

From "Kokobar":
Oh,
I was teenaged, searching for a face
to reflect my own who would call me beautiful
enough to make me think it’s possible she’s not lying.

I definitely recommend reading this book; it's one of my favorites of the year.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems made me work for it - it was so worth it.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Language is at the heart of poetry, with each word carefully considered for its meaning, cadence and place. In You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, the third poetry collection from Arisa White, language is elevated and emphasized in an innovative way.

As per the publisher’s description, “Arisa White’s newest collection takes its titles from words used internationally as hate speech against gays and lesbians, reworking, re-envisioning, and re-embodying language as a conduit for art, love, and understanding.” Because many of the titles are common words that may not be readily apparent as offensive in English (but are derogatory in other countries and cultures), White includes a glossary of the words’ disparaging connotations.

“…how sexist the language was, the fear of the feminine, how domestic, how patriarchal, how imaginative, and the beauty I discovered when I paused to wonder about the humanity inside these words and phrases,” White writes in an Introduction to You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened. While reading these poems, beauty might not be the first descriptor readers conjure up. Arisa White’s work is raw and searing, delving into topics many find difficult and perhaps even ugly.

And that’s exactly what makes You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened a touchstone collection, especially in these unprecedented times when our societal discourse, national rhetoric and political exchanges from the likes of the Republican candidate for President of the United States (and his entourage) divulge into demeaning and crass language about women, the LGBTQ community, the disabled, immigrants, and everyone who is perceived as different, flawed, “other” or “less than.”

If words could stick on people,
if spoken, they would become
a different creature.

Blinded and you’re turned
five times around. Nothing
in you knows what it knew.

It’s the best part of the game:
Prick the girls you like best
while pinning on the donkey’s tail.
(“Tail”)

Arisa White’s poems are rooted in words that demean and belittle — but their transformation is a product of the inherent beauty of humanity and love for each other. We may feel your words but we are greater than them, Arisa White seems to be saying. We are more than your hurled venom, larger than your overpowering prejudice and stronger than strangers’ stigma.

We’re queer and you look too much boy good thinking
taking the rainbow off the plates in Maryland —
no one looked at us longer than was needed.
(“Strangers”)

As humans, as a people, we are encompassed by memory; we are love, we are our losses and life combined. (“I realized that the labels we use to name present us with a loss,” White explains in her introduction. “To name a person, an experience, or an object means we see it for that purpose, that utility, and gone to us is the ‘what else’ — the possibilities of everything the label can’t encompass.”)

Together since the year of my birth,
yet you are pantomime in the wings of our family’s speech
Why do you arch in shadows,
accept the shade eclipsing her face?
The holidays would be more gay
if we didn’t ghost in dead air,
in wooden boxes, letters folded over and over again, in locked rooms
where shames are secretly arranged—
(“Auntie”)

Nestled within You’re The Most Beautiful Thing That Happened is an elegiac suite of poems titled “Effluvium.” (I needed to look up the definition; if you need a vocabulary lesson, too, dictionary.com tells us that it is “a slight or invisible exhalation or vapor, especially one that is disagreeable or noxious.”) These poems, a remembrance “for Karen, 1963-2000,” focus on a loved one who died of AIDS. While several other offerings in this collection are slightly vague and indirect, this suite doesn’t need backstory. The heartbreaking loss of a young mother in her late 30s is all we need to know.

For some, these will be difficult poems for their subject matter and the rawness of the language. It’s not a collection for everyone. But at the same time, it is for everyone because all of us have known pain and all of us have seen the ugly side that life can bring. And we’ve emerged through that experience changed by the way darkness can transform into light, and ugliness into beauty.

[Marthese Formosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

You're the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened is a poetry collection by Arisa White. The collection was inspired after White looked up how different cultures and languages call being gay. She took those terms (translated) and spun them in a different way in her poetry. For more about this, see the notes at the end of the book.

White is from Brookyln, and there was some Brooklyn culture in this collection. There was also mentions of pop culture and brands - in fact I had to look most things up, seeing as I'm not from the States. Some of the poems also had elements of African-American culture.

''Hard truths come in brick form'' from Mary R.E.D. Indeed, this was the case with this poetry collection. A whole series of warning applies! There were mentions of: graphic molestation, sexual assault, violence, a lot of mentions of familiar sexual abuse (uncle), mentions of animal abuse, suicide attempt and self-harm, consensual D/S, death from AIDS and racism mentions. Some of the poems were really hard to read, but left me thoughtful. The name of the book comes from a poem that is very dark. There is darkness in the poem's reality.

White has a way with words; some phrases stay with you and she doesn't use overused phrases but uses new ways of saying something that will immediately translate to the reader. There's many poems on open love and others on closeted love.

Some poems were really great - my favourites are: Lilla, Inscriped, Dirty Fruit, Passing, My Dead,Manly Shoes and Violet Mary.There's a lot of controversial topics, mainly sexual in nature, such as D/S elements and menstrual sex - which I liked. There was also a lot of mention of the (cis) female body. Sometimes, I thought it was too sexual (but that's the ace in me and I understand that White wanted to break barriers).

While some poems were great, others I had no idea what they were about. The long ones often seemed disjoint too. Now, this could be my fault because I read many other poetry books where I had no idea what was happening. If you, like me, prefer poems that are 'straight to the point' and don't use too many analogies, then proceed with caution and a lot of attention while reading this collection. I still think this collection is worth reading, but slowly.

If you want to read a poetry collection by a queer black woman that reclaims insults, this is for you. Some poems in this collection are just brilliant and very deep.

[Melblue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Im grateful for the gift of words. To begin, i was really glad for the introduction because it centered the book in what it was going to do/what it wanted to achieve. I enjoyed all the things explored through and through even though sometimes i was jolted out of the comfortable pace i was reading /taking notes because one word will stick out or just the way of story telling will have me pause and read slowly. The section "Effluvium" is an example. All the poems for Karen, personal as they are gave me fresh eyes reading the book/the poems moving forward. I enjoyed how there was this aspect of the author speaking so candidly without metaphor and ofc, the introduction at the end.. at the end. Just wow. Some of my favorite poems were in this section and onwards. I think it really marked a turning point in the book.

Overall, very enjoyable. All the forms used were also super cool especially the 4 square poem.

[Laura Sackton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of these poems are inspired by various terms for gay in different languages, and they are really something. The way White plays with different layers of meaning is amazing. And the lines are so sharp, this is a book I'm glad I own because I'm going to want to read these over and over. Really startling work.

[willowdog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intelligent and interesting poetry that takes on family, racism, and sex. Very refreshing to read poetry of lesbian writer that actually treats sex as something desired and thought about often.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Lisa Eirene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lush and beautiful. Some poems were a miss for me, but overall they were lovely.

[Sonja · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great lesbian book of poetry. I want to and will read it again. Thank you Arisa White. Mary, Mary I need ya huggin.