I am sure you remember the George Floyd murder. It was May 2020. We were in the middle of the worldwide pandemic and yet we watched as a white police officer had his knee on George Floyd's neck for nine minutes. We hear George Floyd utter he cannot breathe. The country broke out into chaos full of horror, anger and more. There were peaceful marches as well as riots. The event brought racism into the forefront of the United States news and mind. It forced white people to think about how Black people are treated and to realize how many innocent Black people (often men) are murdered because of the color of their skin.
Today I get to share with you a powerful book of blackout poems. It was written in response to watching the news of George Floyd's death. The words are taken from Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. This happened to be the novel Crystal Simone Smith was reading as George Floyd's murder and the aftermath unfolded. The book is Dark Testament by Crystal Simone Smith. It is the perfect book to focus on this month as it is Black History Month. In the past I have liked to focus on various Black people's stories throughout the month. This book shares the Black people whose lives were ended by murder for the color of their skin as well as some other thoughts and actions. It is an adult book so I would say high school and higher for reading level.
From the Publisher:
In this extraordinary collection, the award-winning poet Crystal Simone Smith gives voice to the mournful dead, their lives unjustly lost to violence, and to the grieving chorus of protestors in today’s Black Lives Matter movement, in search of resilience and hope.With poems found within the text of George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo, Crystal Simone Smith embarks on an uncompromising exploration of collective mourning and crafts a masterwork that resonates far beyond the page. These poems are visually stark, a gathering of gripping verses that unmasks a dialogue of tragic truths—the stories of lives taken unjustly and too soon.
Bold and deeply affecting, Dark Testament is a remarkable reckoning with our present moment, a call to action, and a plea for a more just future.
Along with the poems, Dark Testament includes a stirring introduction by the author that speaks to the content of the poetry, a Q&A with George Saunders, and a full-color photo-insert that commemorates victims of unlawful killings with photographs of memorials that have been created in their honor.
"I love this tremendously skillful, timely, and dazzling repurposing of passages of my novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. Crystal Simone Smith has, with her amazing ear and heart, found, in that earlier grief, a beautiful echo for our time." —George Saunders, New York Times bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December
"Written in response to the murder of George Floyd...this touching memorial to the Black lives lost to systemic racism is a rousing homage to those protesting in their honor, who refuse to let these deaths be in vain." - Publisher's Weekly
From Me:
Let's start with what to expect when you open the book. There is a wonderful introduction. It shares Crystal's mindset when she wrote this book. It talks about her own personal life and how some of the words from George Saunders novel popped off the page for her as she sat in her own emotions from the senseless deaths of young Black men. She is the mother of two Black sons, so this is personal for her. After the introduction there is a note to the reader about how the book has intentional blank pages (the pages are not printed double-sided) and how the blank pages are meant to be a pause for remembrance. The poems are divided into two parts after that. Each poem is a visual poem. It has a passage from Lincoln in the Bardo with most of the words blacked out. In between the two parts are pages of colored photos of memorials, murals and more. The people represented in the poems are names you may have heard and some you may not have heard. Their stories did not always make national news or at least not top billing of national news. At the end of the book is a conversation between Crystal and George. Finally, there is information about the artists of the murals, memorials, etc.
The poems are powerful. The poems are titled by the name of a Black person murdered or a group of people (politicians, mothers, etc.) or events and emotions. The poems do not always read properly. Afterall they are from full sentences with most of the words blacked out. The visual of them however is so powerful. It makes one feel small, unimportant and like something his missing. It is powerful. It forces one to think about the loss. The poems are lost words, but in life it is lost lives. The lives of someone's son, father, brother, friend has ended for no reason besides the color of their skin and a hatred that is about power and fear of losing it.
As a white girl, I found this book sad yet engaging. It is full of grief. It is a grief we all should feel but the news of the day seems to have taken away some of our compassion for others. After all it is happening to someone else. It is not our friends, our lives, our neighborhoods. It is so easy to read/hear a story feel bad for a moment and move on. This book is a remembrance for the lives lost. It is sharing the grief and emotions of those who loved them or fear the loss of their own loved ones. It is a world I personally do not have to walk in but know it is wrong and we all need to step up to end it.
This book is perfectly timed for the day. It shares so much emotion with so few words. It brings the emotions and issues of racism into our forefront once again. I hope we can join together to truly end the hatred that exists in our world. I hope you will check out this book and let me know how you feel about it. And let us each take time to grief the loss of lives that were ended for no reason.
