"Song of My Softening"

Although Washington Post book critic Ron Charles doesn't explicitly say he selected this poem in honor of Pride Month for the newest edition of his weekly Book Club newsletter, that's a reasonable interpretation. Whatever his reason(s), I'm glad he chose it.

(Alice James Books)

At the start of 2023, I spotted a pair of impressive poems in Poetry Magazine by someone named Omotara James. Who was this remarkable writer? 

I had to wait more than a year to read her first full-length collection, “Song of My Softening”; it was entirely worth it. 

Her poems explore the experiences of a Black queer woman whose life and body are routinely dismissed and disparaged. But she persists until she can sing in full-throated celebration, “Today we are alive / in summer. Unencumbered.” This is an intimate, vulnerable and ultimately triumphant collection.  

a little tenderness

my first word was not mama, but cookie
i don’t make a lot of money
could be more beautiful
remain fat
my mother doesn’t understand my friends
the aesthetics of my expanding flesh
she might understand why i don’t love men
but not how i’ve come to love women
or why i cry
my mother, never taught me to understand her 
in her native language of Yoruba, her language
was providing a better life, she stays busy
surviving what we took without thinking
twice, my mother avoids complexities

from my writing chair i can still hear her
the length of her befuddlement is as long
and winding as all my years, heavy as hardship
private as disappointment, the distance of her arm’s
length is precisely how much she loves me
i imagine her, often, as a girl
denied the outstretched arms of a mother
to keep her safe, or someone to convince her —
while the window was still open, while
she was a soft child with unblemished hope,
countenance still as palm oil, before it’s fired 
—that she was perfect

Perfect.

i spend my nights on the internet, looking
up words in the dark, practice my pronunciation
i know i’m not doing it right, i give up, this
is not how you learn a language, i catch
a reflection of myself on the dark screen,
left to cope with the facts of life and a loving God
on my face, the look of bewilderment,
she’s worried for my heart while i’m worried
for my heart

“a little tenderness” (poem) is excerpted from “Song of My Softening,” by Omotara James (Alice James Books, 2024). Used by permission of the author and publisher. All rights reserved.