Thursday, March 26, 2009

Biographical Poetry Book Review


BECOMING BILLIE HOLIDAY

Weatherford, Carole Boston. Floyd Cooper ill. BECOMING BILLIE HOLIDAY. Honesdale: Wordsong, 2008.

Ms. Weatherford grew up hearing the music of Billie Holiday. She stated in the afterword that BECOMING BILLIE HOLIDAY is a "fictional verse memoir" that "imagines her legendary life from birth to young adulthood." Ms. Weatherford used the titles of Ms. Holiday's hit songs as titles for her poems.

The fictional verse memoir includes historical information on the racism in the South and how Ms Holiday had to suffer racial slurs and harsh treatment. Billie though the South was bad that was until she visited Detroit. She faced a more personal kind of racism. It was against “her.” In the poem “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?" you can feel the pain she must have had to endured.

Say what you will about the south:
The worst racist I came up against
Was not deep down in Dixie
But way up in Detroit with Basie’s band.
The boss at the Fox Theater claimed
I was too high yellow,
Too light-skinned, to share
The stage with black musicians
And might be mistaken for white.
The one condition for the show to go on:
that I darken my skin with greasepaint.
I smiled to keep from throwing up
and never missed Harlem more.

The story moved quickly with the precise words to paint realistic scenes of Harlem, a child being raped, prison, abandonment, the Apollo, and even a hanging. Poetry eliminates the added words or pages and gets to the heart of the moment. Mr. Cooper's illustrations reflected the period of time but I doubt that his choice of style would connect or engage teens in the story. I didn't like the blurred lens effects.

Two stories are presented; one about the life of Billie Holiday from birth to her mid-twenties and one that presented the struggles Blacks suffered even after slavery. Weatherford added imagery and information that leads to knowledge. Blues and Jazz singers tell their stories through song. The last poem, "Coda: Strange Fruit," sums up Ms. Holiday's life as it was presented in the novel. The last two stanza are powerful.
"When the waiters stopped service
the room was pitch black
except for a spotlight on my face,
and I stood completely still,
preforming "Strange Fruit,"
how could I not shed tears?

When I arrived at Cafe Society
a girl singer with a string of hits
and departed the star of the hour,
how could I not claim:
This is my song?

The Afterword, Biographies, and list of Further Reading and Listening are great resources to complete the book. A reader looking for a biographical verse memoir would not be disappointed in reading "BECOMING BILLIE HOLIDAY."

Note: What is a fictional verse memoir? It combines elements of the novel, biography, oral history, persona poem, and one-woman show into a unique genre. The fictional verse memoir is ideally suited to Billie Holiday's sassy, soulful and sophisticated style.

http://www.becomingbillieholiday.com/

Book Review:
School Library Journal--In this fictionalized memoir, Weatherford has composed nearly 100 first-person narrative poems that detail Holiday's life from birth until age 25, the age at which she debuted her signature song, "Strange Fruit." The poems borrow their titles from Holiday's songs, a brilliant device that provides readers with a haunting built-in sound track. Weatherford's language is straightforward and accessible-almost conversational. ....Cooper's sepia-toned, nostalgic, mixed-media illustrations provide an emotional counterpoint to the text. Resembling old photographs seen through a lens of aching hindsight, they make explicit the pain that Weatherford studiously avoids giving full voice to in her poems.

No comments: