Small Altars

<p>Keli Stewart's profound visceral and heady debut poetry collection is simultaneously autobiographical memoir and social commentary in conversation. The narrator of <strong><em>Small Altars</em></strong> is at different times a girl learning from her elders and ancestors; a young woman coming of age; a single mother caring for her child; or a wise woman who conjures the spirits of her past. In the traditions of Gwendolyn Brooks' <em>A Street in Bronzeville</em> Lucille Clifton's <em>Good Woman</em> and Nikki Giovanni's <em>Love Poems</em> <strong><em>Small Altars</em></strong> renders this self-portrait in spirals and snapshots-sometimes with humor sometimes with sentiment and memory-about the body desire motherhood and place around her identity as a Black woman while awakening keen observations of her ancestors with a griot's voice.</p><p><br></p><p>Black folks are not linear we dip and dive into our lives and there is 'layering' here says Stewart a writer from Chicago's West Side about the structure of <strong><em>Small Altars</em></strong>. From the images of a struggling young mother in <em>we accept LINK</em> and <em>Meditation for Poor Mothers</em> to the humorous instances in <em>Missionary Haiku</em> and <em>Self-portrait: Me with Hair Like Frederick Douglass</em> to the reflective portrayal in <em>My Grandfather Would Cry</em> to the raw recall of awakening sexuality in <em>pink things</em> Stewart's collection illuminates conversations between the facets of one woman's experiences to define the shape of her years and stands as an inspiring exploration of gender race and class in contemporary American life.</p>