Because she is a writer of considerable gifts, we search her verse for evidence of the psychological complexity that distinguished some of her earlier work, from the novels Meridian and The Color Purple to her previous book of poems Her Blue Body Everything We Know. That Absolute Trust fails by comparison is perhaps an unfair indictment for two reasons: First, like anyone, she is not today the person or writer she was yesterday. Second (and most importantly), Walker is not a major American poet.
But even if we generously grant her diplomatic immunity from conventional criticisms, we are left to wonder whether she truly deserves absolution for writing lines like: "The brain / Though encased / In separate / Heads / Is /One brain," or "Though we may feel / Alone / We never / Really are."
Yet "alone" is precisely how we feel when pressed to explain why Walker's reputation promises brilliance but delivers only blunders. We might reasonably expect such languid pronouncements from the diary of a reflective schoolgirl, but not from the winner of a Pulitzer Prize.
Still, we might correctly dismiss these line-item quibbles if she demonstrated greater panache with her more topical material. Her response, however, to the horror of 9-11 is not that of a serious, minor lyric poet, but rather that of a cynical ghoul feeding on sacred ashes.
She writes, "Consider: The Pilot / & the / Highjacker / Might / Have been / Holding / Hands / Those who wish / To make / A war / Of this / Will never believe / It possible." As a poet, she has the unique opportunity to illuminate a crucial moment in our collective experience but produces instead a ghastly ideological snarl.
That her political sensibilities drift to the left is certainly not the problem here. But her willingness to squander aesthetic convictions on social polemics is inconsistent with her pastoral posturing. Walker, thus, summarizes her own contradictory methods when she observes, "Because light is attracted / To dark / As dark is / To light / Let's face / It / You're / Fucked."
Trust is a tricky human enterprise, And if our trust in Absolute Goodness of the Earth remains intact after reading this volume, it may yet be some time before we can say the same of its author.
