Field Study by Chet'la Sebree
Source: Publisher Paperback, 176 pgs. I am an Amazon Affiliate
Field Study by Chet'la Sebree reminds me of those scientific notebooks kept by scientists in the field who are observing animals or others as they take notes. Peppered with quotations from bell hooks and many others, Sebree explores Black female identity and sexual desire. The poem is less like a poem than a list of observations and comments on Black identity and female desire.
Black women and girls face additional burdens of protecting the reputations of black boys and men. -- Tressie McMillan Cottom
My secret ... I'm always angry. -- Bruce Banner
___________
And why wouldn't I be?
In addition the female desire and the struggle of Black women who love and are attracted to white men, Sebree voices some of the issues she's found in the Black community -- how the community does not address mental health enough.
In my early twenties, I worked on an epistolary series.
I didn't know I wrote a book-length suicide note.
I titled it And If I Die Before I Wake.
A prayer and a promise.
__________
I'm alive; I'm alive; I'm alive. Cry it with me. It doesn't always feel like it, but it's a good thing.
Sebree has created a poetry collection in which mental health is entwined with Black female identity, the racial tensions that women feel from all sides, and the responsibility they have to project a sense that they are indeed whole. "No matter how far I go, there is never enough makeup for the bullet hole." Field Study by Chet'la Sebree, which publishes in June, worries and rationalizes and assesses herself like a scientist. Her observations are keen and deeply probing, and she doesn't let up on herself. This is a frank look at one woman's struggle with desire and identity, but it has universal applications to others in all communities -- less judgment and more love. Definitely not your typical, confessional poetry collection -- it's much more.
RATING: Quatrain