When My Writing Grows Up

Toni Morrison is just about the only author who forces me to think about every word I'm reading, feeling, seeing unfold before my eyes. She is the only author, at this moment, who has made me cry while reading a story. I've come close with Arundhati's God of Small Things. I've experienced sorrow, loss and anxiety while reading the novels of Olympia Vernon. I have read all of her novels and have found a few short stories online but must admit that A Killing in This Town was hard, very hard. But so far, can't nobody do me like Toni.

I read and re-read Ms. Morrison's novels. I've read Beloved 6 times, Jazz 4 times and The Bluest Eye twice, I think. Her novels are like the Bible, with each read you find something new (perhaps depending on the point and time you are deep or wading through life). I read the Song of Solomon, years ago. The first time, I admit to skipping a few pages. Afterwall, Morrison tends to go on and circle around and around an event, description, etc. But my first read of Song of Solomon was at a much younger age. Recently, I re-read it again (#3). Once again, I found myself feeling, almost becoming, the characters. I cried with Pilate . . . found myself pressing the book to my chest when I arrived at pages 316 - 319, particularly when she bursts into the funeral home shouting, "Mercy!" as though it were a command. . . Her earring grazed her shoulder. Out of the total blackness of her clothes it blazed like a star. The mortician tried to approach her again, and moved closer, but when he saw her inky, berry-black lips, her cloudy, rainy eyes, the wonderful brass box hanging from her ear, he stepped back and looked at the floor. "Mercy?" Now she was asking a question. "Mercy?":

"My baby girl." Words tossed like stone into a silent canyon. Suddenly, like an elephant who has just found his anger and lifts his trunk over the heads of the little men who want his teeth or his hide or his flesh or his amazing strength, Pilate trumpeted for the sky itself to hear, "And she was loved!"

So that is why I say, when my writing grows up, I want it to be like Toni Morrison's. I can't be her. Nor can I be Ms. Vernon or Roy. I admire them as writers so very much. But within my own right, I can aspire to be as great (if not greater).

Oh, Of Course!!!! Russell Simmons has a book to sell

"We recommend that the recording and broadcast industries voluntarily remove/bleep/delete the misogynistic words 'bitch' and 'ho' and the racially offensive word 'nigger'," Simmons and Benjamin Chavis, co-chairmen of the advocacy group Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, said in a statement. Monday's statement changed course from another one by Simmons and Chavis dated April 13, a day after Imus' show was canceled, in which they said offensive references in hip-hop "may be uncomfortable for some to hear, but our job is not to silence or censor that expression." Hip-hop's Simmons wants to remove offensive words

It took a white man calling black females "nappy headed hos" (I guess its all in how you use nappy as to whether it is considered derogatory) for Simmons to speak out against the author's of hardcore/porn/violent rap music? Too bad the likes of Two Live Crew, 2 Short, etc. didn't sway him. I don't like censorship and I don't particularly care much for today's version of hip hop music (nor some from the "old school"). I didn't listen to it much back then and I turn the radio off or to another station when I hear or at least feel like something's attempting to disrupt my beautiful day/life. The difference between music today and the music my parents listened to was that certain songs weren't played on the radio and when the music was play in my home, we had to go to our rooms (my sisters and I). There were times, when the grown folks were entertaining, the children had to leave the room. This leaving the room came when a 1) certain kind of joke was to be shared or 2) a certain type of song was played --- all of this was done to protect out impressionable minds (lol). So we'd leave the room, angrily, in a huff, swearing in our head (never out loud!). But today, you can hear it all! on the radio!! I'm not going to argue the point.

Changing one's mind is not necessarily a female thing (never really has been). But then again, he has a book to promote and sell --- released TODAY! (April 24, 2007).

How convenient!