Ani DiFranco - Verses

There's no question that Ani DiFranco is one of the most influential artists of my generation. Her work as a songwriter, poet, musician and activist has incited and inspired a huge amount of creative action and the social consciences of all her fans. It only made sense, then, that, at some point, she would collect her unsung work into book form. Verses is such a collection, and it includes a conversation between her and her teacher/mentor, the late Sekou Sundiata.

I read an interview with Ani DiFranco years ago where she talked about how songs, despite their brief length and other elements, should have all the literary merit of a novel. This made sense in the grander scheme of what folk music tends to be: multi-versed melodic narratives about life's events, be they major or minor. In DiFranco's case, however, there's another element at work: she's a rather talented literary poet.

As her songs attest, she seems to have a natural gift for rhyming words in a way that is so unexpected, it helps to drive home the purpose of her lyrics.

Songs are a poetic form almost as limited as that of a sonnet or haiku. Getting words to fit within the confines of rhythm, finding their inherent melody and drawing upong it: these are all things DiFranco has come to master. All the while peppering her musical recordings with more free verse spoken word poetry.

I have to admit the prospect of Ani DiFranco releasing a book of poetry excited me. As a writer, I've long admired the fierce literary merit of her songs, and the creative, intuitive flow of her spoken word pieces. Learning she studied under Sekou Sundiata—another poet for whom I have a huge admiration—was icing on the cake.

Indeed, the poems included in Verses that DiFranco hasn't recorded on her CDs, are pretty exceptional. The mark of a great poem is that you can get it if you read it once, but you feel compelled to go back and read it again and again, each time gaining more insight and depth. DiFranco's poetry does just that.

In "Literal," she writes, "literal people scare me / out there trying to rid the world of its poetry." In her conversation with Sundiata at the back of the book, she says of this poem, "It's funny to me that society uses language to divert or attention away from being present, because it is also with language that the poet pierces that cloud and shines light once again on awareness."

One of the most moving parts of Verses is the conversation between DiFranco and her teacher, Sundiata, who passed away recently. In it, she notes,

"It is hard for me to grasp how my poems read on paper because when I try to read them my spoken voice echoes loudly in my ears ... 'Transcript' might have been a good name for this book, but it wouldn't express nearly as well the overlap of poem and song, while not ruling out the notion that all of these works could simply be verses in the one long rambling folk song of me."

It is difficult, indeed, to tune out DiFranco's spoken and singing voice when reading the song-poems included here as printed pieces. It takes a certain amount of concentration to forget that you've already heard these poems before in other contexts. But, focus on the literature therein, and new meaning emerges.

As a folk song, "Subdivision" is a soft, lulling melody juxtaposed with lyrics that call for an awakening to the racism that persists. As a poem, the opening line, "White people are so scared of black people," stands still on the page. Black type against white paper. There's more time to look at that and the other statements DiFranco's songs make before moving through their melodies. Somehow, spelling it all out in print is a worthy reminder of the breadth of its meaning.

The same is true of other excerpts. From "Your Next Bold Move": "i am cancer/ i am HIV / and i'm down at the blue jesus blue cross hospital / just lookin' up from my pillow / feeling blessed."

From "32 Flavors": "everyone harbors a secret hatred / for the prettiest girl in the room." And so on.

The paintings included in the book are really interesting and gorgeous. I'm not qualified to comment on visual art. I'm more of a stick figure artist and, aside from elementary school, have never taken an art class. All I can really say is that I find most of it really excellent. Particularly the black and white duo of pieces featuring the Twin Towers.

There are some nice sketches of women figures and a really intriguing dark painting of a human figure behind a shadowy window. As good as it is, the art serves more as random illustration than a centerpiece of the book. Perhaps she'll release an all-art book in the future.