The Annotated Nightstand: What Tara M. Stringfellow Is Reading Now, and Next

Tara M. Stringfellow’s debut novel, Memphis, made a splash with high praise from NPR, the New York Times, and other venues. Library Journal gave it a starred review and placed her among some of America’s finest prose writers, stating, “Recommended for anyone who appreciates Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, or Gloria Naylor.”

Magic Enuff, just out, is Stringfellow’s first collection foray into poetry (though not as a genre—she’s the first to earn an MFA in poetry *and* prose from Northwestern University).

While much of the collection is a love letter to Memphis, Blackness, and faith, Stringfellow’s poems frequently consider the different shapes violence takes against Black Americans in general, but particularly Black women: men (physically and/or through heartbreak), white people (physically and/or socially). Black women’s greatest resource, Stringfellow illustrates throughout these poems, are each other. The women in these poems provide physical protection, kinship, a weeping partner, or simply laugh and reminisce.

The griefs and celebrations of divorce, from a white man no less, gets much attention—and the women who support her through it. The title of the collection comes from one of the poem’s lines: “God can stay asleep / these women in my life are magic enuff.”

Many of the poems are, aptly, dedicated to different Black women writers who are Stringfellow’s literary forbears (Sonia Sanchez in particular). They are just as often dedicated to Black people killed by police (Tyre Nichols, Laquan McDonald). Stringfellow writes at one point:

I’d cut off my right,
writer’s hand gladly
if I never had to eulogize
another poem for
another Black, dead body

The urgency of the topics in her work is clear, and she makes it pointedly explicit in her acknowledgments when she writes, “We live in a time in which we’d give a teacher a 9mm handgun to defend her classroom rather than a copy of The Color Purple.”

Stringfellow generously provided annotations for the books in her pile! Those are below along with some tidbits I found.

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Hazel Felleman (editor), The Best Loved Poems of the American People

Stringfellow explains that

This anthology is what made me a poet. I can remember my father picking up this thick black book from a high shelf, and he read me and my sister poems instead of stories that night. My sister loved “Casey at the Bat,” and I fell very deeply in love with Poe’s “The Raven.” And I knew, even at three years old, that I just had to do the same: I had to write poetry that was moving, poetry that told a story. So I take this anthology with me everywhere.

I love this tidbit from Jeff Minick in Smoky Mountain News,

The Best Loved Poems of the American People was published in 1936, in the depths of the Great Depression, a risky time to put out a fat compilation—575 poems in 670 pages—when so many families were battling to put soup and beans on the table. I also discovered this collection is still in print and has in the last eighty-three years sold more than 1,500,000 copies.

Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“My love of poetry continues!” Stringfellow writes. “And my love for this poet, in particular, knows no bounds. Her poetry should be required reading. What Shire can do with words, how each poem is its own protest, amazes and bedazzles me. I cannot recommend this collection enough.” Erik Gleibermann writes at Ploughshares,

Shire tells a similarly excruciating tale of one woman’s violated body carrying the pain of collective violation in “Home,” the poem that brought her international attention when the New York Times editorial board, a British parliamentarian, and actor Benedict Cumberbatch all quoted it to highlight the worldwide plight of refugees. In the less politically serviceable prose of the final section, the speaker thanks God for saving her from war, despite the humiliations and abuse of life in exile. ‘Alhamdulillah, all of this is better than the scent of a woman completely on fire, a truckload of men who look like my father—pulling out my teeth and nails.’

Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing

Gyasi’s first novel spans centuries and traces family branches—those who were enslaved and those who, through a shared ancestor, remain in West Africa. Isabel Wilkerson writes in the New York Times of Homegoing, “In the first, magical half of the novel, Gyasi walks assuredly through the terrain of Alex Haley, Solomon ­Northup and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her intimate rendering of the human heart battered by the forces of conquest and history.”

Stringfellow tells us:

Sometimes you need a book on your nightstand to remind you of what good novel-writing should be, and Homegoing is that novel for me. Each line is like biting into an overripe mango. Gyasi is a master of the pen, a force to be reckoned with, and I feel it a deep honor to have her words as close as possible to where I lay my head at night.

Ann Patchett, The Dutch House

This novel by Ann Patchett, beloved author *and* bookstore owner, came out in 2019. Heller McAlpin reviews The Dutch House at NPR and writes,

Patchett’s eighth novel is a paradise lost tale dusted with a sprinkling of Cinderella, The Little Princess and Hansel and Gretel. Two siblings, Maeve and Danny Conroy, bond tightly after their mother leaves home when they’re ten and three. Home is the eponymous Dutch House, a 1922 mansion outside Philadelphia that their father, Cyril, a real estate mogul, bought fully furnished in an estate sale as a surprise for his wife in 1946, when Maeve was five. The house, built by a Dutch couple who made their fortune in cigarettes, is grand, with an ornate dining room ceiling, six bedrooms on the second floor, and a ballroom on the third floor. His wife, Elna, hates it.

Stringfellow tells us: “My current read and Lord have mercy, is it a good one. It’s the perfect summer read—I took this to the lake with me for Memorial Day. Patchett’s prose is unflinching and unapologetic. I love a family saga and this one is a true gem.”

Melissa Mogollon, Oye

María Alejandra Barrios writes of this novel at Electric Lit,

Oye by Melissa Mogollon is a unique coming-of-age story told as a series of phone calls and conversations between Luciana and her older sister, Mari. Coming out in May 2024, this buzzy debut is already causing conversations amongst early readers on the unique style, prompting readers to reflect on their family dynamics and perhaps even call their sister. One of the year’s most anticipated novels by a dazzling new voice, this book is a funny and heartfelt exploration of growing up, resilience, sisterhood, and finding your path.

Stringfellow explains: “This is my next read after I finish Dutch House. I’ve seen this book everywhere and am so excited to break her open. I confess, I mostly picked this one up for its cover—gorgeous—and something tells me that the prose inside will be equally beautiful.”

The cover is indeed fabulous. Nothing like a great cover doing its work of making us reach for great literature.