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Questions for Discussions on This Crisis, These Blessings:
- In False prophets, angels and Madonna, the writer
says women should:
“Be complex.
Be unfinished.
Fly like angels anyway.”
What does that mean?
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In Crisis, wedding, whenever the writer comes close
to describing a horrible scene, she interrupts her own narrative
with lyrical thoughts, such as “A crisis is a whirl
of stars.”
Does that make the main narrative any more or less
true? Is the narrator unreliable? Is the writer trying to
protect the reader? Is the writer trying to make the reader
see the story inside a larger story?
- In Washerwomen, blessings, when you hear these words,
what do you feel?
Hold onto the fringe of your friend’s skirt.
Hold onto the hair of that girl next to you in your naked
dream.
- In Shame, the writer says, “To say that women
have maternal instincts is to objectify us. Our instinct may
be to leave our children if they get in the way of other love.
Our instinct is to prop them up with pillows, and a baby bottle
of juice with a touch of vodka so that they will sleep while
we go out”. However, in Crisis, wedding, the writer says,
“Women offer fruit pies, unconditional love, and reachable
stars. We talk. We listen.” The writer is saying there
is no such thing as maternal instinct, yet she is portraying
women as loving, attentive bakers of pie.
Does maternal instinct exist? Should the writer try
to define women?
- What does the title Death before dishonour mean?
Why does the author invoke street gangs and heores such as Prometheus?
By pairing these heroes with everyday heroes such as Miguel
(a boy who brings the author flowers) what might the
writer be saying?
- The writer, in Grapevine, diaspora, claims: “If
any of us had noticed a volunteer almond tree, which had sprung
free from a failed orchard long ago and planted itself alone,
and if any of us had seen the white lace of its blossoms and
smelled its reassuring confectionery scent, we would have been
content.”
Can a writer speak for everyone?
- In Shame, the author admits: “My writing used
to suffer from objectifying tendencies… My first poem
was dangerously full of “purple prose” and had stereotypical,
weeping, starving children and a sunset. (Or, was it a dawn?)”
By the end of the book, does the author help the reader
connect with authentic characters?
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