Verses

Around 9/11 this year I was listening to a live album of Ani Difranco and found the hairs on my arms sticking up again over her poem "Self Evident." Then I found a video of Ani reading the poem from her poetry book, Verses. (I highly recommend watching the poem. It is quite long, but truly chilling.) I found a used copy (score!) of Verses and dipped into the poems slowly, until I got towards the end and began a more frantic pacing. In case you don't know about Ani Difranco she is a prolific musician who started her own record label when she was eighteen and has released over 20 albums, many which include a poem. Her song lyrics and poems are amazing and I do feel like she has had more influence on my work than any other writer, even though prior to reading this book I had only heard her recordings, rather than sitting down and reading her words. The book does include many of her songs, which I read an online review that said it was a disappointment to someone looking for new material to see most of the poems in this volume have been recorded in some fashion throughout the years. And yet there is so much power in these poems/ lyrics, so much depth that I appreciated reading them in a more reflective manner than simply listening to them. It's definitely a book I will be returning to again and again.