Un-American

Starred review from June 15, 2020
Geter’s vivid debut invokes the pain of familial dislocation, illness, and death, exacerbated by the twin plagues of xenophobia and racism. The marriage of Geter’s parents (a Nigerian Muslim woman and a former Southern Baptist black man) saw her family move from Africa to various inhospitable locations in the U.S.: “my father leans down the barrel of a shotgun/ house/ and looks in both directions.” “Lesson one: there’s no god/ in Alabama,” Geter writes in “Alabama Parable.” Many of the narratives are moving, and the mother-daughter dynamic is central to the collection: “In America, no one would say her name/ correctly. I watched it rust/ beneath the salt of so many.” There is joy to be found in Muslim prayer and the Hausa language, but every blessing has an underside: Nigeria is “the land where my family will ask/ why I haven’t a husband.” Racism is addressed in poems recounting the murders of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Michael Brown, and personal compulsions offer their own dangers: “I’ve always been/ attracted to little/ violences.” It is this violence, captured in rich, musical language, that command such power.

September 1, 2020

The Nigerian-born daughter of a Nigerian Muslim and a Black Southern Baptist, Geter portrays life at a familial, cultural, and religious crossroads in language that's forthright, affecting, and ringingly lucid, with nail-sharp turns of phrase (her aunts have "smiles hard/ as Baptist pews"). The pain and complexities of Geter's upbringing are immediately evident ("We have so many gods/ and none of them/ can be trusted"), and Geter is excellent at capturing her mother's frustration as she moves from Africa to America ("At night, she prayed to Allah/ for something from America that was more/ than children"). Throughout, Geter portrays her father's struggle with life's indignities and the tragedy of her mother's death from an aneurysm while offering her own challenge to American racism in testimonies to murdered Blacks like Sandra Bland and Eric Garner. Finally, she declares, "My grass-stained knees pledge allegiance/ to a country that belongs to no one I love." VERDICT An eye-opening story of immigration--and of America; for most collections.

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