I Wish I'd Written This

I Will Keep Broken Things

By Alice Walker

I will keep broken 

things:

the big clay pot

with raised iguanas

chasing their

tails; two 

of their wise

heads sheared off; 

I will keep broken things:

the old slave market basket brought to

my door by Mississippi a jagged 

hole gouged

in its sturdy dark

oak side.

I will keep broken things:

The memory of

those long delicious night swims with you; 

I will keep broken things:

In my house 

there remains an honored shelf

on which I will keep broken things.

Their beauty is

they need not ever be "fixed."

I will keep your wild

free laughter though it is now missing its

reassuring and

graceful hinge.

I will keep broken things:

Thank you 

So much! 

I will keep broken things. 

I will keep you:

pilgrim of sorrow.

I will keep myself.

Alice Walker is best known as a brilliant novelist, whose novels I love. Her poetry not so much. Perhaps she isn't as good at verse as she is at prose, or perhaps it just isn't my cup of tea. But I do love this one, for its wonderful message and the particular details it lists of things to value.

I first found it at PoemHunter, where it is presented as one of those long, skinny poems with only one or two words per line. They are definitely not my cup of tea! I can seldom see the point. I tried to tell myself that the layout echoed/illustrated the idea of brokenness, but....  I thought the verse breaks rather odd and meaningless, too. 

I was delighted to find it set out as above, accompanying a reading of it she gave to Emory University in 2009. Because it's a university, I imagine they got the text right! Because it's fairly recent, I imagine that if she did write it the other way earlier, the version above is the way she likes it now. (Though, if you have a listen, you will hear her describe the iguanas' heads as 'fierce' rather than 'wise'. I'm sure they were both.)

She is also an activist, and was quoted on social networking recently as saying, 'Activism is my rent for living on the planet.' 

A prolific writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, she is best known as the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Colour Purple. Her Amazon page is here and her official website here.

The link on her name, above, is to the Wikipedia article. There is a longer biography here, with a lovely interview on video.

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).