What joy to read you reading LUCY alongside WAYWARD LIVES. When I think about Lucy, which I do at least weekly, as though she were a very real person I had very really met, I think about the way she (among so many things) makes the invisible refusals of white imperialism visible. I see so clearly, reading LUCY, how many things a white imperialist history refused her, refused her mother, before either were even born, how many things Mariah and Mariah’s milieu refuse Lucy in particular. Lucy’s refusals are only so glaring because they are not permissible… which I guess is why those podcasters see her as selfish, yes? She refuses to only be refused without refusing in turn?
I can’t wait for the Zoom conversation. Thank you for all this good work.
Yes! I thought so much about how Lucy made it visible in a way that read as so obvious to me that I was *shocked* anyone could miss. I don't understand a reading of Lucy that misses it, frankly. I've been collecting Daffodil poems because of Lucy's moment and Kincaid's later openness to daffodils. I will send you a new one I found. ☺️
I just finished Lucy (late as always) and immediately came to read your newsletter. Thank you for all of this. There is an endlessness I felt while reading this book—whole histories and lives and echoes and futures packed into every sentence. The expansiveness of your thinking and everything you speak of and reference here is proof of that, and invitation. I have just barley begun to think about it all.
It was serendipity to have your reading of the Hartman earlier this year. Without it it would have still been unread, I would have missed that part of the rich chorus! I'm still rather in awe of Lucy. I need another life of re-reading Kincaid books tbh.
What joy to read you reading LUCY alongside WAYWARD LIVES. When I think about Lucy, which I do at least weekly, as though she were a very real person I had very really met, I think about the way she (among so many things) makes the invisible refusals of white imperialism visible. I see so clearly, reading LUCY, how many things a white imperialist history refused her, refused her mother, before either were even born, how many things Mariah and Mariah’s milieu refuse Lucy in particular. Lucy’s refusals are only so glaring because they are not permissible… which I guess is why those podcasters see her as selfish, yes? She refuses to only be refused without refusing in turn?
I can’t wait for the Zoom conversation. Thank you for all this good work.
Yes! I thought so much about how Lucy made it visible in a way that read as so obvious to me that I was *shocked* anyone could miss. I don't understand a reading of Lucy that misses it, frankly. I've been collecting Daffodil poems because of Lucy's moment and Kincaid's later openness to daffodils. I will send you a new one I found. ☺️
I just finished Lucy (late as always) and immediately came to read your newsletter. Thank you for all of this. There is an endlessness I felt while reading this book—whole histories and lives and echoes and futures packed into every sentence. The expansiveness of your thinking and everything you speak of and reference here is proof of that, and invitation. I have just barley begun to think about it all.
It was serendipity to have your reading of the Hartman earlier this year. Without it it would have still been unread, I would have missed that part of the rich chorus! I'm still rather in awe of Lucy. I need another life of re-reading Kincaid books tbh.
I'm so glad that happened because your thoughts and writing on Hartman made my experience of it so much richer!