Book Review

Hair Piecez The Anthology

Edited by Akosua Ali-Sabree& Otu Kwaku

Published by Ujima Press Real Communication

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania State

Hair Piecez The Anthology honored Sharon L. Goodman; the founder of the International Locks Conference: Natural Hair, Health & Beauty Expo. which I am proud to say was hosted at Imhotep High School (my high school) a couple years back. It was written for the 10th anninversay of the annual celebration of locs and natural hair care. This book was given to me by a friend  exactly one day before I left for Botswana. I carried it with me through customs, onto a plane into my homestay to my new campus and then onto my lap. It took a few readings for this book to grow on me but I’m so glad it did. Now I just want to go back and pick out my favorite  poems and share them with everyone. The pieces in this book that impressed me the most were There’s Hope by Rah-nia Ashanti and The Spiritual Journey of a Locksman by Nashid Alil

·    There’s Hope was a short story and personal testimony about a woman who loved her man more than she loved herself. Although this situation was temporary, she fell in love with a man who overtime began to belittle her cooking, her style and her hair. He made comments such as “You’d look pretty with your hair different’’ and ‘’I don’t like dreadlocks’’.  Mind you, her hair locs were 8 years old and she had them when he met her. Nonetheless, he made his request and she cut her hair to prove that she cared about his opinion. She got a perm, sported weaves and even changed her cooking ingredients just to please this piece of shit of a man. And she was miserable because she was not being true to who she was. Anyway, the guy ends up leaving for a job in Florida just to return hoping to rekindle the relationship even though he dislikes the fact that she started regrowing her locs. What I don’t like about this story is its ending. It ends with him returning home saying “what happened to your hair?” But it doesn’t say if she took him back or not.

   The Spiritual Journey of a Locksman is about a man who traveled to Paris during the summer in the 1970s and found a community of black students with natural hair. After meeting these students who studied at the University of Sorbonne, he saw a black man with a unique hairstyle, a hairstyle he had never seen until that day. They were locs, dreadlocks, Kongo Locks and all the other names.  So here you have a black man in Europe learning about locks and being inspired to loc. After returning to the states and being ridiculed by his college peers, he realized he needed for inspiration for this journey he wanted to take. He traveled to Jamaica, fellowshipping with Rastafarians and learning the true essence of being a ‘’Locksman’’. They gave him the spiritual insight he would need to make a confident and prideful decision. He locked his hair in the 1970’s and cut them in 1994. For nearly two decades, he had locs. When he finally cut them he said, “ti amazes me that when I cut my locks I discovered the kinetic effect locks have on one’s aura”.

 

Other poems that stood out to me were duafe by Syreeta Scott, In My Sister’s Head by Brendah  Eady and Love’s Canvas by Sakinah Ali-Sabree.

·     duafe was interesting because it made a good point about mothers and natural hair care. Everyone assumes that black mothers’ know how to care for their daughters’ natural hair. This is not true. Even my own mother had to learn from my aunt various techniques for braiding, styling and moisturizing. Taking care of natural black hair is a skill that must be learned over time. Duafe tells the story of a mother who knew little about natural hair and out of desperation she decided to perm and flat iron her daughter’s hair. Now should this mother be frowned upon because she did not have the proper skills? No, she shouldn’t. Black women are not born knowing how to manage coarse hair or any texture of hair. Hair care is something that must be taught or learn on one’s own time.

·     In My Sister’s Head shows how mothers, sisters and big cousins can be in communication with hair. In this poem, the main character is an older sister entrusted with the duty of caring for her sister’s hair. Although this appears to be a simple and straightforward task, it is more of a relationship. The sister communicates with the hair, humbly asking for permission to grow with it. She say’s it was in her ‘’sister’s head’’ that she ‘’learned to think’’ and ‘’saw life breaking off its bitterness’’. The hair or the head is like a life coach, someone who is able to provoke thought and make you reflect on your life. If life is breaking off its bitterness, then it is forgiving someone and healing from its pain. So, hair care could be therapeutic for both the stylist and the sistah’s head if the stylist is in communication with the hair.

 

·     Love’s Canvas is a really simply poem. It talks about women needing to love themselves before they commit to loving some man. That man who we think is head over hills for us may actually be looking over our hill at another woman. Or maybe we don’t have anything to give that man because we have yet to give it unconditionally to ourselves. What is ‘’it’’?  ‘’It’’ is love. We are so quick to love others, defend others, commit to others and sacrifice for others before considering our own needs. We are afraid to be selfish, to be honest and to be self serving. And every single time we move forward attempting to love someone else, we love the wrong person and our canvas is distorted with a misconception and emotionally unforgiving color of love. So, in the words of Sakinah Ali-Sabree ‘’if you can identify with this picture, let that nucca go because in order for you to grow he gots to go. Yes, sisters LOVE YOURSELF’’.  And even if you are a woman loving a woman, this still applies to you.

In addition to inspiring this blog post, Hair Piecez has made me reflect on my own loc journey. After reading selected pieces I was charged to renew my stance as a supporter of natural hair and healthy risk taking. I took a chance with locking my hair and learning how to style my hair. There was a risk that my locs would not turn out right, that I would be embarrassed and left to hear “I told you so, I told you so, I told you so”. But, I went ahead and did something that felt right to me. I gave myself permission to be me.