Shahid Reads His Own Palm

by Reginald Dwayne Betts

Gripping and terrifying, eloquent and heartwrenching, this debut collection delves into hellish prison life. Soulful poems somberly capture time-bending experiences and the survivalist mentality needed to live a contradiction, confronting both daily torment and one's illogical fear of freedom.

Genres: Poetry, Memoir, African American

80 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2010

About the author

Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet, essayist, and national spokesperson for the Campaign for Youth Justice. He writes and lectures about the impact of mass incarceration on American society. He is the author of three collections of poetry, Felon, Bastards of the Reagan Era, and Shahid Reads His Own Palm, as well as a memoir, A Question of Freedom. A graduate of Yale Law School, he lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with his wife and their two sons.

Reviews

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very strong 4 stars for a first book of poems by a poet writing out of his experience as a young African American man who found himself in the Virginia prison system after participating in a car-jacking. Up to that point, Betts had been a solid student with no involvement in the criminal world, a story documented in his memoir A Question of Freedom. His identity and political timing working against him, he found himself a mistake away from a life sentence under the truth-in-sentencing laws which have given the U.S. an incarceration rate which, according to most measures, surpasses that of China or Iran.

All of which would be of purely theoretical interest if Betts' poems didn't command attention for their power and polish. It's the best first book I've read since Judy Jordan's Carolina Ghost Woods, which shares Betts' ability to transform seemingly simple and direct language into powerful meditations on themes which are at once very specific to prison and resonant with much broader human experience: loneliness, despair, mourning, determination, ancestry. Thematically he reminds me of Etheridge Knight (especially his debut Poems from Prison); stylistically, of Phil Levine.

If I ever teach my African American poetry class again, Betts has earned a place.

[Alicia (PrettyBrownEyeReader) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection left me speechless. The poet writes primarily about incarceration. He takes prison lingo and elevates it to its own art form. He defines the lingo and uses it to illustrate life behind prison walls. In the poem, Dear Augusta, Betts describes the language as one of “survival and blood.”

The poem, Fantasy Girl captures the essence of the collection. The poem is about a prison rape. It is written with intimacy but the reader knows this is a violent act. Rape is a tough subject but Betts skillfully writes this poem. The entire collection is like this poem: tough subjects but excellently written.

[Camila Uriona · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this reading a difficult one. It took me longer as I re-read the poems various times. The imagery is powerful, the poems are a testimony that left me heart broken but also satisfied with well written poetry. The world the author shares with us, is that inferno that is prison.
It also made me want to research and learn more about the judicial system in Virginia, learn more about the stats. I go the other way most of the time: I start reading an article about an author and then get their books and dive into their work and bios.
This time, these poems made me think about the topic of poetry, the use of images and poetic language to describe a sordid experience like is jail and to go from there to the research and articles in the topic. Hard. In the U.S. they have different jail systems depending on the state.
What are the crimes that lock you there for ever, for some time, or take your life? How is all that balanced? If it is balanced at all? There are sentences I don’t understand, and might never will. But I found it interesting to learn more as the daughter of a lawyer.
I always told my father I didn’t want to do his job. I think i couldn’t. But it was always good to learn from him, and now I got intrigued by the author’s experience.
We learn something new everyday. I am thankful to the New Yorker for their article about Betts and his poetry (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...).
Highly recommended for these times of craziness. The book and the article. Resilience ahead!

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read Felon and finding it utterly provocative, I was keen on reading some of his earlier works, and it didn’t let me down. Betts explores prison life and survival in this collection, as well as the troubles and slipperiness of time that one is likely to encounter while in prison. I was really taken to the ghazals that Betts used as touchpoints, capturing a beautiful kind of lyricism that differed from the other poems in this collection (though, I should say that they were just as lyrical, but in a different way).

I appreciate how Betts eloquently captures the problems of incarceration in the United States, while incarcerated, and after being let out (as explored in Felon). He brings such a unique and important voice to the poetry world, and I continue to look forward to his future works.

Some favorites: all the poems titled “Ghazal,” “Near Nightfall,” “The Spanish Word for Solitude,” “Two Nightmares,” “And What if Every Cuss Word Was a Sin,” “Ode to a Kite,” “An Opened Vein,” and “The Truth About Four Leaf Clovers”

Read for the Sealey Challenge.

[Georgie]

I don't read an awful lot of modern poetry collections, so I definitely don't regret reading this, even though I don't really think that Betts will make my top favourite poets. 'Shahid Reads His Own Palm' is a collection of poems that all revolve around prison (something that would have made a lot more sense if I'd known that going in - the back of the cover literally doesn't say this. I had to google it), and it's a very striking example of classic lyric poetry: using words as a way to express. The poems all felt incredibly personal and incredibly vulnerable, and as a result, there were a couple where I didn't quite understand what they were supposed to mean, but I didn't feel like I was supposed to - almost like I was prying. Through this collection, I definitely gained a new insight into prison life, which was unexpected but interesting, and there were quite a few poems that I really liked.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Betts, who was sentenced as an adult to nine years in prison after an armed carjacking at 16, serving eight, writes poems about prison life that are visercal and affecting. The book also expands out to include poems from the speaker's mother's perspective.

My favorite poems were his ghazals, all titled as such. There was also a pantoum I found very moving. Something about the repetition in these forms complements the speaker's environment and state of mind.

[Adrienne Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard the author give an interview that led me to finding this book. I am spellbound by his story, and that may have influenced my appreciation for his poetry. It gave me perspective. Some are heartbreaking even in just a matter of a few words.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read this since college but many of the images in it have stuck with me in the years since. Was glad to read it again and once again be struck by the rawness and beauty and tragedy of these poems.

[Emily Pérez · Rating 5 out of 5]

As much love poems as poems of survival. Betts uses structure with surety and grace; the voices and characters in this book are beautifully rendered.

[Maughn Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

So painful, I could only read these beautiful poems a few at at time.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reginald Dwayne Betts, Shahid Reads His Own Palm (Alice James Books, 2010)

This was a rollercoaster of a book for me. I started out not really feeling it; Betts is a solid poet, no doubt, and it's fantastic to see a poet using formal verse these days, but (a) one-author collections that deal with one subject throughout tend to sound more obsessive than expressive, and (b) Betts has a fondness for ghazals, a form so painfully artificial that it's next to impossible to get to sound natural. (That Betts never succeeds does not get him points off; I've read books of ghazals by acknowledged masters of the form who've been writing them for decades where not a one has been readable.) They're like the Boston Terriers of poetry; sometimes you can see where they came from, but are so badly mutated now they're only good for taking out and showing off now and again around other enthusiasts.

All of which is going to make the next bit of this review sound entirely hypocritical, and so be it. You're not writing this review, you don't get to make that call, as long as I tell you up front I know how hypocritical it is, right? Because what finally sold me on this volume is another painfully artificial form, but one that's a little easier to do right: the pantoum, a Malay-by-way-of-France form that consists of repeating full lines (ABAB BCBC CDCD … ZAZA). It's still tough, but I've read a lot more workable pantoums than I have ghazals, so I have at least a point of reference. And the one time Betts tries it in here, it's the best poem in the book.

“The cracked walls of cell B8 swore
broken men peeled back tattoos to cry
and some lean shoulders on past highs
after, clank! then yoke followed closed door.

Broken men peeled back tattoos to cry,
touched dirt as some wild man's whore
after, clank! then yoke followed closed door....”
(“A Cell Houses a One-Sided War”)

It's hit-and-miss, and I rush to add that people who can appreciate ghazals for what they are will have a very different opinion on that than I do, but when you get to the last page of this one, you won't regret having given it a go. ***

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just read this book in one sitting. These are poems from the point of view of the incarcerated African American man, the monotony and despair of passing time, an elaboration of the culture of the "inside," of survival, negotiation, regret, contrition. So there is a movement or arc of growth for the poetic speaker/persona of Shahid. The recurring ghazal form and its refrains are one indicator of this movement. This book confirms for me that indeed, it is possible for this poetry to be masculine and even muscular, but not fall into the territory of machismo. The poems are honest and heavy without being heavy-handed and dramatic. The "I" of these poems I appreciate for his emotionally balanced tone, so as not to fetishize (glorify or denigrate) the incarcerated, or give us spectacle and sentimentality. The words which compose these lines are well-considered. The lines which compose these poems are clean, even lithe. They give space, or open themselves up to the reader without pandering or relying on cliche.

I realize that it becomes easy to enter any poem or body of poems about subject matter with which I am unfamiliar, when the poems open themselves, give us readers space to actually read them.

[Christina M Rau · Rating 3 out of 5]

My past obsession with watching "Lockup" crept up on me as I read Shahid Reads His Own Palm. Suddenly, I was in a cell, in a jumpsuit, in solitary confinement. Reginald Dwayne Betts shows the tales that develop behind prison walls through identifiable personae and sometimes intricately-constructed form poems. After I read “Ode To A Kite,” I wondered, What is he talking about? Then my reality-tv-enduced wisdom kicked in and I realized, Oh! A kite! A message! I went back and read and sure enough, the description of what it is and how it’s passed is clear and crisp. While the content is not my preference (despite my penchant for late night prison show reruns), the craft is admirable, though I’m not so sure about the sequence. Some poems took me out of the prison and some thrust me straight back in, and I would prefer to be in until I’m out.

[Joshua Gage · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ordered this book from the library because I am fascinated with ghazals. Betts did not disappoint. The ghazals in this book are faithful to the form and work really well. The rest of the poetry is outstanding. There are really rich, potent images and dense language in these poems that makes for not only a successful first read, but for enlightened rereads. Beyond that, the honesty and humility of the speaker is readily apparent, and makes for a really insightful read. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in poetry.

[Yvette Moreno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Betts is a masterful poet in both form and free verse. This book lays bare the intimate, hard details of prison life today in the US.

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay collection that sometimes gets mires down in limited language and juvenile repitition.

[Laura Flegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extraordinary, powerful and beautiful book of poetry by a very fine poet.