About His WorkPoetry
"Weaver...finds a place in the legacy of Whitman and the mid-nineteenth century when in the evolution of American poetry the glory of vernacular speech first became fused in verse with an inspired sense of the American self, sensuous and yet transcendent. Weaver's verse acknowledges the guidance of that tradition and honors it...His vision is local and focused, and as befits a poet of genuine depth and seriousness of purpose, it is as wide as the horizon itself." -- Arnold Rampersad (from his extended essay that is the preface to Multitudes)
“[Weaver] ...is one of the most important poets of his generation.” |
Poet, Playwright, Translator
Photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Leaves
The lines that make you are infinite, but I count them every day to hear the stories you carry. These are not secrets but records, things we should know but ignore. If I commit the sin of tearing you from the tree, I find another world inside the torn vein, another lifetime of counting the records of who walked here before, of what lovers lay here holding each other through wars and starvation. Some days I stand here until I lose focus and travel, drifting off out of the moment, too full of it, and my legs are now like trees, mindless but vigilant, held into the earth by the rules of debt, what we owe to nature for trying to tear ourselves away. I drift and the pleasure of touch comes again, layers of green in the mountainside a tickling in my palms. The pleasure is that of being lost here in the crowd of trunks and pulp, the ground thick with the death of you, sinking under my feet as I go, touching one and another, linking myself through until the place where I entered is gone. When I am afraid, my breath is caught in my throat. When I am not afraid, I lift both hands up under a bunch of you to find the way the world felt on the first day. published in Orion magazine CRITICAL QUOTES REGARDING WEAVER'S WORK THE POETRY What the sages know is what Weaver submitted himself to learning from the time of his childhood, a black kid exposed to both city and country in the last days of segregation...The book (The Plum Flower Dance) is that rare bird, both weightless and profound...It simply understands, as St. Teresa of Avila understood when she counseled "let nothing perturb you," that there is no gain in desperation." Ralph Jones East Providence Post November 30, 2007 "Weaver finds a place in the legacy of Whitman and the mid-nineteenth century when in the evolution of American poetry the glory of vernacular speech first became fused in verse with an inspired sense of the American self, sensuous and yet transcendent...(He) has made himself into a virtuoso in his manipulations of vernacular form. Poems such as "Mojo Mamba" and "Piggly Wiggly"--Rabelasian sendups of black American phallocentric humor...are composed so deftly that one is brought up short when the exaggeration and the laughter stop and the meditative voice and rhythms return to serve the poet's more intimate needs. His vision is local and focused, and as befits a poet of genuine depth and seriousness of purpose, it is as wide as the horizon itself. Weaver's depiction of black culture clearly emerges from a profound love of black people." Arnold Rampersad Stanford University from preface to "Multitudes" "Fanon said, '...to speak is to assume a culture and to bear responsibility for a civilization.' Afaa Michael Weaver has done that in his poems. This poet has been to the "carnival in the city" and returned with the knowledge that the country is alive because of his benedictions." Sonia Sanchez writing on "Multitudes" 2000 THE PLAYS "The Michael S. Weaver play “Rosa”...works magic on the soul...Eugene O”Neill’s “A Moon for the Misbegotten” kept coming to mind as this play unfolded...I think my connection had more to do with O’Neill’s sovereign sense of drama--a quality Weaver, a poet of some consequence, also evidenced in his writing here.” Nels Nelson The Philadelphia Daily News June 8, 1993 “The spirit of the late William Inge inhabits the weather-beaten house, the rose-covered arbor, and the people in search of connection in Michael S. Weaver’s Rosa...” Clifford A. Ridley The Philadelphia Inquirer June 5, 1993 The Reginald F. Lewis Museum
African American History & Culture in Baltimore The New England Poetry Club awarded Weaver the 2009 May Sarton Award for his service to the art of poetry and for serving as an inspiration to fellow poets. Weaver shared the award with Fred Marchant of Suffolk University.
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