I just wrote a book of poetry, which as the writer Don Marquis noted, is like “dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.” I have been honored that those who have read The Enchantress Queen and The Ghost Who Made Me have been so extremely generous in their praise, but it can be hard to get the word out about a book these days when there are just so many books and so many websites and so many other millions of things competing for our limited attention.
I have been trying all the normal routes, reaching out to organizations and bookstores in my community. As a result, I was able to get wonderful readings at my congregation and at our local library festival in recent weeks and was just accepted to participate at George Mason University’s Fall for the Book festival this fall, which put me over the moon.
At the same time, I had an amazing experience this past Sunday, when my dear friend and college roommate, sociologist and long-time community organizer Dr. Jeneve Brooks, organized a free private Zoom reading for me by making a Facebook event and sending invitations to her broad network of friends.
We had a group of nearly 20 souls join us and had a beautiful evening of sharing poems from the book and answering questions about the writing process and listening to the stories of participants on the call. One wrote in the chat that “My mom recently fell ill and it’s made me take a lot of time to appreciate her and our relationship, so these poems were very meaningful to hear right now. Thank you for sharing.” Another wrote (of me), “How lucky she was to be able to see her mother so clearly and over so many versions of her. Most of us have very unilateral perceptions of our mothers.” It was a night of connection and thoughtfulness in this crazy world, and I was so very touched that this group of women spent an hour of their precious weekend time focusing on my words and stories and on connecting with me and each other.
What the event taught me is that while it is certainly nice to have the imprimatur of a large organization hosting me for a reading, we can have just as magical a time on a Zoom call organized by a friend.
My friend Jenny is a very special person and has been for the 40+ years in which I have known her. Even while studying at our rather staid and very White small liberal arts college in the 1980s, she single-handedly organized challenging dialogues to get people to discuss racial equality. She worked as a social worker to help some of New York City’s poorest and most underprivileged citizens to access services before getting her doctorate in Sociology. She then taught at a large public university in Alabama and became a beloved, tenured professor by helping those with limited means to think and grow in ways that went beyond the confines of her sociology class syllabi. Today, she is a consultant to non-profit organizations and a local Democratic Party organizer in the Deep South. Jenny does not wait for someone to come and save her. She rolls up her sleeves and does the hard, hard work of trying to make this world a better, fairer, kinder, and more connected place—even if that is by just planning a Zoom reading for her college roommate on her own birthday.
I think we should all feel this sense of empowerment in our daily lives. Why was I waiting for some authority to “accept” me to do a reading when it could be done as easily as sending out a Facebook event invitation? Why do we wait for someone to rescue our country when it’s us who should be diving in to volunteer? The energy and love that we put out into the world can be catching. I’d like to be more like Jenny, who inspires me to dream big by doing something that might on its surface seem small, and hope you will, too.
It was a beautiful evening of sharing! And my other friends loved your work, Lori! Will continue to brainstorm about how to get the word out about this book!