Bloodwarm
by Taylor Byas
Variant Literature, $10.00 paperback, 34 pages
Taylor Byas is a poet and essayist from Chicago, Illinois. She is currently residing in Cincinnati, Ohio where she is a PhD student studying poetry. Her debut full-length poetry collection, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times is set to come out in Spring of 2023 with Soft Skull Press.
In her latest chapbook, Bloodwarm, Byas examines and explores the relationship between existing in a Black body and how a white centric society imposes on that. There are components of this set of poems that remind me of other profound Black writers. These include the language used, confidence in each speaker’s voice, the overall tone, and direct approach to the discussion on Blackness. The approach was similar to James Baldwin’s dedication to unabashedly speak truth and the poetic sense prompted thoughts about June Jordan’s poems regarding similar concepts.
As a reader of Bloodwarm one is made to confront the dark corners that many refuse to discuss. Each poem is a stroke in the painting of larger themes while also being their own standing moments. The individual poems have a strong sense of scene. In an interview with Mordecai Martin through The Poetry Question, Byas discusses that the scenic approach in her poetry comes from her “background as a fiction writer first” and “out of that came this narrative-focused poetic voice that seeped into” her poetry.
Through various poetic forms Byas curates a voice that pierces to the core of what it means and how it is to be Black and survive in America. Bloodwarm houses many examples of using a poetic form or structure to emphasize the scene at hand. This chapbook holds received forms such as the sonnet, “On Being a Black Instructor”, the golden shovel “You’re It”, as well as the erasure poem or components from it, “Colour” and “October Spell in Indiana”. A prominent usage of the pantoum is the perfect instance of form being effectively used. The pantoum is a form that built around building context through repetition. In “I Don’t Care If Mary Jane Gets Saved Or Not,” the speaker addresses the differences between herself and the female love interests from the Spiderman franchises. She does so through the lens of displaying how the concept of victimization can be cast on white women by themselves in opposition to Black women. Meaning of the lines throughout the poem develop in that keen repetition. The first line completely transforms by the time it appears at the end:
“I can’t lie, I tried to imagine myself
in Spiderman’s grip—my damsel-in-distress
scream strung through the city like Christmas light—”
[…]
[…] The way I play dead
in the cocoon of Spiderman’s web, you can tell I’ve practiced.
Because what else could I be but the villain?
I can’t lie. I tried to imagine, myself.”
In the first stanza the speaker is solely existing in their own space, but by the end the women that look like the aforementioned “damsels” have villainized the speaker in a way she is heavily aware of. Through this narrative and close perspective the speaker elongates the mere wondering into something that is realistic despite being based on fiction. There is a layer present that displays how being Black even soaks into how one thinks about themselves in the imagination.
Another of the pantoums present is “Pulled Over” which is made up of two different scenes and perspectives. There is the first scene of a presumed young woman getting pulled over by the police. This section is in a first-person perspective and titled, within the poem, “I. To the Cop, For Arresting Me.” It gives a one-sided dialogue of the speaker to the cop. It’s language and tone are careful, but also pleading and worrisome. As the poem progresses those latter notions are further revealed. The second section takes a step back in terms of perspective with the mother as the center focus. This section carries over the anxiety from the previous one without breaking the pantoum form:
“[…] Can you let me go? My mom gon worry if I don’t
pick up the phone. She’s calling right now. And your gun is
supposed to scare me? Listen. Let’s just forget this. Chalk this up as
an apology. Officer I’m sorry, don’t kill me, I don’t want to die.
II. To the Mother, When Your Baby Still Hasn’t Made It Home
Pick up the phone, she’s calling right now. And your gun is
on the nightstand because daddy died by the blue. His last words
an apology—Officer I’m sorry, don’t kill me, I don’t want to die.
When you hear your daughter’s voice you touch the Bible […]”
This perspective switch, which lasts to the end of the poem, gives further context to the initial speaker’s personal fears in the interaction with the cop. Yet, by the end of the poem, parallels between the first interaction and the mother having to put innocence into her voice like she was supposed to teach her daughter are drawn. The words that her child said to the police officer return as the mother’s thoughts—the ones the mother wishes to say instead of “How you doin tonight officer?” The thread of discussing the violence rendered against Black people goes through so many of Byas’ poems despite it being exhibited through different narratives.
“Voicemail to Madam C.J. Walker”, addresses the Black historical figure directly under the circumstance illustrated by the title. We’re placed right at the beginning of the contact. The speaker is “Sorry to call so late” and wanted to “Just talk to” Walker. We quickly see the tension that is present, starting at the end of the first stanza and start of the second:
“[…] I’ve been thinking about your hands,
how they were primed for kinks and curls
since childhood, pricked by the fang curl
of the cotton bracts. […]”
The speaker’s switch in tone is the entry point to an examination of pride in Black hair, the connection between this and Walker’s success, as well as how American history views Black success. The piece is setup to reflect a stream of consciousness. Due to that formatting of thought, there are these associative images and details that build on one another. There are poems in this set that drift away from directly talking about violence against Black bodies, but they are still in the same conversation. They pair well with the other poems because they cover ground about Black existence—something ever impacted by white centric society. These poems are the act of remembering Blackness as it truly exists.
Bloodwarm takes on an evolving personal viewpoint. It is used as the needle leading the thematic thread through the chapbook. Though this is a newer group of pieces it is apparent that this gathering of work is best experienced for the self. Seeing how connected yet varying each piece is in relation to one another is a poignant interaction to have to fully understand the whole. It shoves you into the room with a flashlight and makes you confront what so many choose to ignore. You need to look in the room.
