What do you think?
Rate this book
how to get over
An astonishing debut, how to get over is part instruction manual, part prayer, part testimony. It attempts to solve the reader’s problems (by telling them how to get over), while simultaneously creating them―troubling the waters with witness and blues. ford’s poems witness via a series of “past life portraits” that navigate personal space as well as the imagined persona. These portraits conjure the blues via the imagined lives of the inanimate (a whip, a machete), the historic (a Negro burial ground, Harriet Tubman, The Red Summer), the iconic (Pecola Breedlove, Richard Pryor, Rodney King). At the same time, these portraits focus on the past lives of the author and grapple with themes including sexuality, sexual abuse, and substance abuse. The collection’s namesake poems speak to bullying and homophobia, blackness, whiteness and gentrification, and even directly address pop culture icons like Kanye West, Chaka Khan, and Nicky Minaj. Grounded in memory and re-memory, these poems pray in the voice of the ancestors and testify on their behalf. ford’s poems not only remind how the history and legacy of slavery placed African-Americans at an unfair disadvantage, but attempt to illuminate the beautiful struggle of a people’s endurance and resilience. The reader embarks upon a journey through these poems, circa 1787 to 2013, and emerges realizing that everything is connected―the ways we live, lie, love, and die―the ways we all get over.
110 pages, Paperback
First published May 9, 2017
5 people are currently reading
288 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 29, 2018
An absolute delight from one poem to the next. Each piece reads like stream of consciousness, if your brain thinks in lyrical rhythms the way Ford's does. Reading this collection was like listening to music and I had to stop and savor the melody after reading each one. The images are beautiful and most impressively unapologetic. I was absolutely inspired by this collection.
October 4, 2021
Wise, deliberate, practiced, and authoritative with their lyrical mobility and prowess. These lines, verses, and pieces evoked in me a deep emotion and exhibited an ability to poeticize living/dying with a singular and varied excellence. how to get over was one of the most impactful collections of poetry I've read all year, and I look forward to reading more from t'ai freedom ford. Thank you.
June 27, 2021
finally, some good representation!!
May 8, 2018
How do words come out from under the bed, too astounded to stay in the blinding light of images, of bone marrow, skin disdain, celebrating Juneteenth, phrases like a "plantation in them lungs," "this land unforgiving soil of bone and blood"? Simply stated I don't know. T'ai Freedom Ford's work is both a sweeping up of bruised bone marrow and an oratorio to splendor of the human soul - hers and her perceptions.
My Faith describes Africans, African-Americans as People of the Pupil of the Eye.
You know why? Because they see the truth clearly. I hope her words pierce the veils of many souls. They speak to me as life-blood for a world gone entropy shopping.
This is a poet! humbly offered.
My Faith describes Africans, African-Americans as People of the Pupil of the Eye.
You know why? Because they see the truth clearly. I hope her words pierce the veils of many souls. They speak to me as life-blood for a world gone entropy shopping.
This is a poet! humbly offered.
September 8, 2023
A collection of poems that dives fearlessly into the tough topics: race, violence, sexuality, slavery. This collection is both raw and tender, showing us the struggles the poet has seen and experienced.
From shock and awe: "her voice: part tantrum, / part opera, part street, where heart meets hard. / glass shards, flock of pigeons, in her throat."
From the beautiful people: "they speak golden / we beholden to every shiny syllable spilling raspy / from their nasty mouths eat fruit fed them by lovers leftovers / from night before"
This was a collection I didn't, perhaps couldn't, read in one sitting. But it's a book I kept returning to, wanting to read another poem, till I got to the end.
From shock and awe: "her voice: part tantrum, / part opera, part street, where heart meets hard. / glass shards, flock of pigeons, in her throat."
From the beautiful people: "they speak golden / we beholden to every shiny syllable spilling raspy / from their nasty mouths eat fruit fed them by lovers leftovers / from night before"
This was a collection I didn't, perhaps couldn't, read in one sitting. But it's a book I kept returning to, wanting to read another poem, till I got to the end.
September 17, 2017
Tips for Black survival, especially for queer Black femmes.
Let's get this out of the way up front: Ford did not have to include notes. The core audience to whom she speaks will understand her references full well, what they signfiy, at the bone. That she willingly opened her work to the rest of us should inspire humility in the non-Black reader and a strong desire to further research the people and events she chronicles.
Whether readers need them or not, however, true poetry lovers will not fail to be moved by Ford's lyrical saga of generational trauma, survival, and celebration. With an extended reach from around 1787 to the present day, these poems are a gift to Black women from their ancestors, as conjured by Ford in four sections that outline strategy and tactics for survival: Live, Lie, Love, and Die. That last is the most difficult to unpack, on its surface, but as you read through it the meaning becomes clearer: be ready to die, honor and mourn the dead, never let your killers forget you know their game, and aren't ashamed to call it out. Love, by contrast, is a celebration of queer love, its tragedies and triumphs, and how just its very existence in an often hostile world is a sign of victory.
Various poems throughout the sections are given the title "how to get over," and dedicated to various men and women, describing their specific ways of surviving in a hostile world: Kanye, Chaka, Auntie Evon. This narrative thread weaves in and out of a second theme in poems titled "past life portrait," which fulfill the same function. This consistent criss-cross through time illustrates vividly how the past and present are linked, how the living are the products of long lines of ancestors, both blood and fictive kin. Ford honors her own ancestors with specific poems dedicated to them by name, but they, too, are woven into the greater fabric of the whole, so that Black readers will see their own mothers, aunts, and grandmothers.
Standout poems, in this reviewer's opinion, include "shock and awe," "how to get over" (page 42), "how to get over," (page 54), "big bang theory," "still life--color study," and the poem that closes the volume, "how to get over" (page 107). There is not, however, a single bad one in the bunch. This is a moving work of high craftsmanship, recommended for all poetry collections.
Let's get this out of the way up front: Ford did not have to include notes. The core audience to whom she speaks will understand her references full well, what they signfiy, at the bone. That she willingly opened her work to the rest of us should inspire humility in the non-Black reader and a strong desire to further research the people and events she chronicles.
Whether readers need them or not, however, true poetry lovers will not fail to be moved by Ford's lyrical saga of generational trauma, survival, and celebration. With an extended reach from around 1787 to the present day, these poems are a gift to Black women from their ancestors, as conjured by Ford in four sections that outline strategy and tactics for survival: Live, Lie, Love, and Die. That last is the most difficult to unpack, on its surface, but as you read through it the meaning becomes clearer: be ready to die, honor and mourn the dead, never let your killers forget you know their game, and aren't ashamed to call it out. Love, by contrast, is a celebration of queer love, its tragedies and triumphs, and how just its very existence in an often hostile world is a sign of victory.
Various poems throughout the sections are given the title "how to get over," and dedicated to various men and women, describing their specific ways of surviving in a hostile world: Kanye, Chaka, Auntie Evon. This narrative thread weaves in and out of a second theme in poems titled "past life portrait," which fulfill the same function. This consistent criss-cross through time illustrates vividly how the past and present are linked, how the living are the products of long lines of ancestors, both blood and fictive kin. Ford honors her own ancestors with specific poems dedicated to them by name, but they, too, are woven into the greater fabric of the whole, so that Black readers will see their own mothers, aunts, and grandmothers.
Standout poems, in this reviewer's opinion, include "shock and awe," "how to get over" (page 42), "how to get over," (page 54), "big bang theory," "still life--color study," and the poem that closes the volume, "how to get over" (page 107). There is not, however, a single bad one in the bunch. This is a moving work of high craftsmanship, recommended for all poetry collections.
August 9, 2023
Day 8 of the Sealey Challenge.
.
Jon Sands gave us a t’ai freedom ford poem in the last session of Emotional Historians and I immediately put all the TFF books the library had on hold, so perfect timing for this challenge.
.
A stunning collection. I’ll have to buy my own copy for sure. Not only one of the most self-assured strong super smart voices ever but also so impressive in how the collection covers such a HUGE span of African-American history and pop culture (from Harriett and slavery up through Treyvon and Kanye).
.
Lots of different styles of poems here. The title refers to a whole group of poems scattered throughout—some for the speaker’s viewpoint but many for other specified people—and there are other poem *types* so to speak, that are explored similarly (the past life portraits for example). (I wound up looking up alllll about Richard Pryor afterward—I never knew his story!). .
.
This reads almost like rap to me—the intelligence and unexpectedness in the rhymes and rhythms (reminds me of the way people talked about Eminem’s verbiage when he started out). I bet these are intense and impressive read out loud!!
.
Here are some faves:
how to get over (for Kardin Ulysse)
namesake
how to get over (for Kanye)
past life portrait (circa summer 1980)
hands
how to get over (for those of us who can’t quite quit her)
past life portrait (summer 1919)
trouble man (for Marvin Gaye)
.
Jon Sands gave us a t’ai freedom ford poem in the last session of Emotional Historians and I immediately put all the TFF books the library had on hold, so perfect timing for this challenge.
.
A stunning collection. I’ll have to buy my own copy for sure. Not only one of the most self-assured strong super smart voices ever but also so impressive in how the collection covers such a HUGE span of African-American history and pop culture (from Harriett and slavery up through Treyvon and Kanye).
.
Lots of different styles of poems here. The title refers to a whole group of poems scattered throughout—some for the speaker’s viewpoint but many for other specified people—and there are other poem *types* so to speak, that are explored similarly (the past life portraits for example). (I wound up looking up alllll about Richard Pryor afterward—I never knew his story!). .
.
This reads almost like rap to me—the intelligence and unexpectedness in the rhymes and rhythms (reminds me of the way people talked about Eminem’s verbiage when he started out). I bet these are intense and impressive read out loud!!
.
Here are some faves:
how to get over (for Kardin Ulysse)
namesake
how to get over (for Kanye)
past life portrait (circa summer 1980)
hands
how to get over (for those of us who can’t quite quit her)
past life portrait (summer 1919)
trouble man (for Marvin Gaye)
January 7, 2021
This is always a challenge: the delicate balance between personal taste and incredible writing. While at times I found the poems too physically frank for my own proclivities at other times I was blown away by form and content and turn of phrase. This is an important book. It is beautiful and necessary.
November 23, 2021
am so very glad I read these poems. The poet is brave and clear and virtuous and direct. She speaks of her life and the life of her family and the life of the world and of the culture and of the nation. She speaks words of survival and strength out of weakness and all in vivid language and images. I loved it.
February 9, 2018
diagnosis
January 12, 2019
3.5 stars rounding up
August 11, 2022
Good goddamn, this woman can write!
August 19, 2022
I especially loved the series of poems each entitled "How to Get Over" with different dedications. Another Sealey Challenge pick for me from the library.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews