Three Cities

By Whitney French

Reviewed By Jorge Antonio Vallejos

Have you heard the myth about writers starting to self publish because they’re not good enough to be published by publishing houses?  Well, Whitney French, budding poet, and hardworking literature advocate debunks the myth with her new collection Three Cities.

Part journal, part travel log, part rant, Three Cities takes you on a tour of French’s life.  What a tour it is.

Beam me up Whitney!

Split into three sections, the title is self-explanatory.  French writes about Bradford, Montreal, and Toronto, the three cities she has lived in.  The collection starts off with a funny book disclaimer reminiscent of the start to every Law and Order episode:

all cities in this work are fictitious.

any resemblance to a real city,

whether a thriving metropolis or a ghost town,

is purely coincidental.

unless of course you’re referring to

bradford ontario

montreal quebec

toronto ontario

in which case,

yeah, they’re real.

French’s first section, Bradford Beginings Endings lets the readers know this is not fluff.  There’s mention of the usual small town landscape: Tim Horton’s, BBQs, and beer.  But it’s followed by a reality that many don’t know: 

a woman on the bus saying coloured girl.

French shows how small town Canada has a long way to go via one sentence.  Are we in the American South?  No, but French does describe her home town as “a black girls nightmare” followed by a scene of “a fruit truck carrying mexican field workers home”.  If you didn’t know it was Bradford you’d have USA on your mind for sure.

black in bradford follows the first poem with deeper cuts into the life of French.  The poet describes being called “brownie”; white girls “afraid of the dark”; and a car pulling up and yelling the “N” word three times:

i’m not from the projects

but I’ve been in a drive-by

and the trigger of that word

made me run home scared for years.  

black in bradford, filled with quotes of French’s life could be made into a Shit People Say to Blacks in Bradford YOUTUBE video:

oh, I pictured you differently

why don’t you get your hair in dreadlocks

oh I think black men are so hot

On to Montreal where French’s confession poetry takes a different route: dating white men.  “You and me are nothing but chaos” opens tre.  Booze, parties, and sex are written about.  The poem is minimalist; there is a Bukowski element to it with its short lines, eroticism, and relationship troubles.  But there is no sexist with whiskey on their breath behind the pen in tre.  French writes of confusion and pain masked as love:

for a girl who’s last love

painted only in one shade,

your rainbow feels good to me.

French tells of now knowing it was a bad situation.  “Rage” thought to be love, darkness covered with sex, and the sad reality of domestic violence.  French courageously lets it all out, and drops the reader with a line harder than a Mike Tyson hook:

wait it out like rape

I stopped reading.

French ends with survival:

i sneak off

when you’re not looking

in search of someone else

less handsome

less fun

for someone with less issues.

Now to the T-Dot where French writes of Chinatown, the DVP, the famous heat-wave, and Spadina Road.  DVP ends with a beautiful line:

while the red sun saws

a cloud in half

making one, two

so you’re walking through chinatown is a tour on paper.  Through twelve stanzas French perfectly describes a part of town that is central to Toronto.  Dried fish, carts of fruit, bootleg DVDs, vendors yelling, and the smell of food everywhere makeup French’s vignette.  But there is more.  French weaves her own Jamaican heritage in: ackee and cerasse.  The poet writes for her own mixed ancestry and people calling her “china man pickney”.  Thoughts and memories flood French’s mind having her “walk out of Chinatown” and giving us this poem.

French’s new, self-published, collection is about more then three cities.  Race, relationships, colonization, ignorance, human hurt, survival, and the many good and bads of life grace the pages of Three Cities.  The young poet takes you on a journey, her own French Riviera, the life of a Black woman in transit betweet three Canadian cities:

from bradford to toronto

from toronto to montreal

from montreal to bradford

from bradford to montreal

from toronto to bradford

from montreal to toronto

and back again. 

Tune into Black Coffee Poet Wednesday February 6, 2012 for an inclusive interview with Whitney French.