Reading Rice: A Local Habitation and a Name

Abstract

Nikky Finney, a South Carolinian Black woman, wrote Rice, her second collection of poems, over an extended period of gestation and personal growth. I read the collection two years before it was eventually published by Sister Vision Press in Canada. At the time, it made absolute sense to me that the collection be published, and I was convinced that it would be just a matter of time and the right publisher before the work would see the light of day. I read the work under peculiar circumstances. I did not really know Nikky. I had met her in passing, but a friend of mine had talked extensively with her and had been blessed with a copy of Rice. After listening to Nikky read in Sumter, I demanded that my friend allow me to read the poems. She did, and the letter that follows emerged as my spontaneous response to the work. Since that time, I often considered writing a more formal critique of the work, but every time I returned to my letter, I was struck by the energy and clarity of the reaction. I became convinced that this reaction was the most deeply felt response to her work and needed to be exposed to the eyes of others. I also began to realize that something about the epistle lent itself to the kind of direct and free-flowing reaction to Nikky Finney's work that is so necessary. The reflections in this piece are by no means comprehensive and do not take into full consideration the edits that Finney did to the text prior to publication. However, because the essential qualities of the book remain the same, I am convinced of the comments' validity. I also find it interesting that my reading of the poems intersects wonderfully with some of the structural changes that Finney made with the manuscript that was finally published. It is my conviction that Nikky Finney brings a distinctive voice to American letters that needs to be heard. It is an intimidating voice because of its directness and its open engagement with issues that are often on the fore of the American consciousness. Perhaps this is the reason that Finney was unable to secure an American publisher for the book. At the same time, there is little doubt that Finney is blessed with such a facility for metaphors and turn of phrase that much of what she has produced is brilliant in its evocation of time, place, and mood. There is a ruggedness to the sprawl of her verse that is reminiscent of another poet from another time and culture: Like Walt Whitman, Finney seeks to discover the heart, the core of the experience and often allows that to subsume an instinct toward the constriction of form. But there are also very fine moments that showcase Finney's capacity for intense control and rhythmic precision in her writing. As an alien to this country, I have found myself discovering this landscape and culture through a myriad of encounters which range from the music of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and the great blues women, to the jaundiced glitz of Hollywood's magic and the very coherent and homogenous ingenuity of television. I have married these encounters with an examination of the history and culture of the South and a close examination of the literature that has been generated by this culture. Finney's poetry has offered me another dimension to the picture. As I encounter her personal history, I realize that I am encountering a more profound and deeply American reality--a reality that beautifully allows me to feel as if there is a certain affinity in much of America to the South from whence I have emerged. And here I speak not of the Southern States of America, but the large body of people from the Southern hemisphere. As I read her work, I hear the strains of reggae music; I hear the sweet falsetto of Cameroonian jive, and the calm groundedness of Ghanaian high-life. I also sense the blues-like earthiness of country folk trying to make sense of their diasporal existence. It is in these things that I have discovered a closeness to the work of Nikky Finney. …