Hard Times Require Furious Dancing - by Alice Walker (Paperback)

About the Book

Alice Walker sums up the premise and purpose for this year of poems in her Preface: "I was born into a family of eight siblings. I am the youngest. Five of us have died. I share losses, health concerns, and other challenges common to the human condition, especially in these times of war, poverty, environmental devastation, and greed that is quite beyond the most creative imagination. Sometimes it all feels a bit too much to bear....I have learned to dance." Alice Walker is beloved for her ability to speak her own truth in ways that speak for and about countless others. Here she confronts personal and collective challenges in words that dance, sing, and heal. Readers of these remarkable poems will find comfort and camaraderie -- and get a joy-filled dancing lesson.

Book Synopsis

"Though we have encountered our share of grief and troubles on this earth, we can still hold the line of beauty, form, and beat. No small accomplishment in a world as challenging as this one."
-- from the preface

I was born to grow,
alongside my garden of plants,
poems
like
this one

So writes Alice Walker in this new book of poems, poems composed over the course of one year in response to joy and sorrow both personal and global: the death of loved ones, war, the deliciousness of love, environmental devastation, the sorrow of rejection, greed, poverty, and the sweetness of home. The poems embrace our connections while celebrating the joy of individuality, the power we each share to express our truest, deepest selves. Beloved for her ability to speak her own truth in ways that speak for and about countless others, she demonstrates that we are stronger than our circumstances. As she confronts personal and collective challenges, her words dance, sing, and heal.

Review Quotes

"[These poems] grow as naturally on the page as grass and flowers, yet never try to conceal a terrain of early graves, emotional land mines, and levies of sorrow."
-- Gloria Steinem

"A lifeboat in a storm, warm soup in the mouth, a rhumba in the streets of the heart."
-- Jack Kornfield

"These are powerful anthems of womanhood and age, although just as likely to be empowering to men and to the not-yet-old."
-- Booklist

"Walker's many fans won't be disappointed by this book."
-- Publishers Weekly

"The poems sing of joy and pain, loss and grief, love and transformation, with results that are redemptive....Highly recommended for all readers of contemporary poetry and for anyone interested in African American literature."
-- Library Journal

"Her poems are intimate and moving, and, like the deepest of heart-to-heart conversations with one who knows us well, they touch the places that hurt, acknowledge the pain, and shine healing light on it."
-- Spirituality & Health

About the Author

Alice Walker is known around the world for her fiction, poetry, essays, and human rights activism. She was honored with the 2010 Lennon Ono Grant for Peace and has been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.