Booksology This entire collection is amazing. It’s full of poems about desire, race, and the construction of the self. Lewis is troubled by the historical and cultural forces that define and determine the very concept of selfhood: what it means, how it occurs, and where we begin and end. Some of the short, lyrical poems really surprised me with their sharp and surprising lines. So please forgive me for concentrating only on the title poem. It’s not that the rest of the collection isn’t valuable, it’s just that this long narrative poem is so astonishing, world-shaking, and revelatory that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I read it. I will never think of poetry and art and the production of both the same way again. This poem changed my relationship with art making. That’s rare and remarkable.
In the poem’s prologue, Lewis explains that “The Voyage of the Sable Venus” is “a narrative poem consisting solely of titles, catalog entries, or descriptions of exhibits of Western art in which black women appear, from 38 B.C.E. to the present.” She goes on to explain the rules she created for herself when composing this poem, including this surprising note: I did not make any changes to the title or text other than adding or changing punctuation. They appear exactly as she finds them.
The poem is divided into parts called catalogues, which outline various times and places (such as “Ancient Greece and Rome”). It ends with several pages of footnotes in which Lewis lists all the museums and institutions whose works he consulted to create the poem. As the title suggests, it’s a voyage. Lewis takes us on an epic journey through the history of representation of black women and, by extension, the history of humanity itself. She exposes the erasure, silencing, and violence perpetrated against Black women in the name of “art.” But this poem is not about violence, nor is it about erasure. It contains unspeakable violence, but it is written with love. It’s an incredibly beautiful poem. This work exposes the racist and patriarchal structures that underpin much of Western art, which is a truly incredible feat, but it does not give voice to those structures. This is a story about the life force of Black people and Black women. This is a poem filled with countless compassions. It refuses to surrender to the violence it has made visible. I’ll never finish reading it. There’s nothing I can write about it.
The book ends with an essay about writing poetry. As I read, I kept thinking about the immense weight of creating a work like this, the research, the physical and mental labor, the enormity of the task. Lewis speaks of this vastness in his essay, and it makes me even more grateful, even more humbled, and even more humbled by this gift of poetry. This is a once in a lifetime kind of book. I think everyone should read it too.
