The World Will Follow Joy

April 15, 2013

Author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple, among two score other works in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, Walker offers a new poetry collection that is thematically of a piece with her previous writing. Her spirituality, concern for human rights, and almost old-fashioned, determined joyousness run deep, and her devoted readers will want to follow her as she turns "madness into flowers." Plain-spoken, plaintive, and not without witticism--one poem is titled "If I Was President ('Were' May Be Substituted by Those Who Prefer It")--these poems range from the Dalai Lama ("The Dalai Lama is Cool/ A modern word/ For/ 'Divine' ") to social and political concerns ("Racism dates us/ (Speciesism does too)") to personal reflection ("My desire/ is always the same; whenever Life/ deposits me; I want to stick my toe, & soon my whole body/ into the water"). VERDICT Walker stays true to long-held beliefs and a simple writing style; sophisticated poetry readers may not be interested, but Walker's readers and others who embrace her concerns will enjoy.--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2013
Walker knows that this sparkling poetry collection's central vision of a peaceful, joyful future in which we forswear war and the plundering of the planet will seem naive, but she counters: I believe / with all my heart / in the magic / and the power / of intention. Having grappled once again with torrents of injustice and suffering in her new essay collection, The Cushion in the Road, this tireless activist has freed her mischievous, sensual, and spiritual poetic self to write of nature, love, friendship, courage, and generosity with playful and crooning lyricism. Sweet praise songs to her musical, handy, salt-of-the-earth lover are matched by warm, incisive tributes to Gloria Steinem, Oprah, Gabrielle Giffords, Cornel West, and Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. In verse and photographs, Walker tells the story of her adoption of an orphanage in Kenya for children who lost their parents to AIDS, a project bolstered by her receiving the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace. In her nimble poems of celebration, Walker distills struggles, crises, and tragedies down to bright, singing lessons in living with awareness and joy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)