Renaissance

Winner, The 1999 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award, Poetry

Editorial Review From Library Journal

Forman, who won the Barnard New Women Poets Prize and appeared in the PBS series The United States of Poetry, offers her second book of poems. Stunning and beautiful, they use incantatory language that heals; through references to writers of the Harlem Renaissance, the work builds a bridge for a new generation. These poems acknowledge some painful history, both personal and collective, but they lift us from that pain with lines like “You are a healer…/…you will bring it to people/ French thyme and apple mint cherry roots blackberry leaves star/ apple words.” Among the issues addressed are birth, healing, racism, black literary heritage, and abuse. Poems like “Church Y’all” celebrate language and cultural roots with the message “nothing necessary but our tongue and what we remember.” For most collections.

— Ann K. van Buren

Editorial Review From Booklist

Here, in her second book, her poems are like carefully banked embers. Renaissance traces the life cycle as Forman pays tribute to her ancestors (both literal and metaphoric), including a profoundly wise and moving memorial to her mother; offers love poems notable for their determined self-respect; and presents a set of spiritual meditations on friendship, expression, and community.

— Donna Seaman

Other Reviews

“Renaissance is the fulfillment of Forman’s first book, We Are the Young Magicians. Hers is a commitment to the possibilities of life. Joy. Beauty (though terrible at times on this earth). What an impressive, rich song she sings.”

— Sonia Sanchez

“Ruth Forman’s Renaissance marks the rebirth and reemergence of one of America’s most gifted young poets. Forman’s lyricism dances on and off the page, and her eye, her ear, and her tongue allows us, the readers, to see, to hear, and to taste the intricate nuances of her world. Indeed, like the great Langston Hughes, it is Forman’s uncanny ability to document the simplicity of life which makes her work so complex, so universal, and so important to read.”

— Kevin Powell, Renaissance back cover