DiFranco gets poetic

Verses…Verses Ani DiFranco Seven Stories Press

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The cat calls of high school boys fueled the title of Ani DiFranco’s self-made label, Righteous Babe Records, at age 18. To now call her a diva 19 albums later seems like an understatement and hopefully not an insult.

The 37-year-old once-dreadlocked singer, songwriter, guitarist and now mother has led a peaceful crusade through the music industry with her platform shoes and views on women’s rights, democracy and feminism.

In her new, first poetry book, Verses, she is bringing poems never before seen in print to the page, along with the lyrics of previous albums and a conversation with her mentor, poet and musician Sekou Sundiata.

Verses makes evident why her politically and culturally driven songwriting has made her a folk and feminist icon during the past two decades. Her early songs were heavily steeped in sexuality and her personal life, while they are now political explorations of both allegiance and discontent. Verses is a two-part combination of both the new and old, with 21 original pieces of art.

In “To the Teeth,” DiFranco is ready with a plan of attack without any flowery flourishes or her usual use of metaphor: “Here’s what I suggest we do: open fire on Hollywood / Open fire on MTV / Open fire on CNN / Fox News and ABC.”Her disgust with media as a monotonous reiteration comes in “Fuel” again, with “all the radios agree with all the TVs / And the magazines agree with all the radios / And I keep hearing that same damn song / Everywhere I go / Everywhere I go / Maybe I should put a bucket over my head.” Her images are vivid and funny, while revealing her own calloused frustrations.

“Reprieve” is a mind-over-matter look at gender and equality. “Oh to grow up gagged and blindfolded / a man’s world in your little girl’s head / the voice of the great mother drowned out.” She encourages radicalism and talks about how feminism is not equality but instead reprieve.

Metaphor is DiFranco’s GPS through the world, which is why literal people freak her out in “Literal.” She writes, “When they said he could walk on water / What it sounds like to me / Is he could float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.” She fears the end of poetry, or rather the black-and-whiteness of taking things so seriously.

“Camping” is an ode to the freedom of living outdoors without mirrors with a twinge of girl power. “Because I can walk across a log on the river like I’m walking down a runway,” she sings. She’s not afraid of creepy crawlers, but one doubts if she ever belonged to the Girl Scouts.

In “Coming Up,” DiFranco sums up her patriotism, self-awareness and struggle with love most poignantly. “I lower my eyes / Wishing I could cry more / And care less / Yes, it’s true / I was trying to love someone again / I was caught caring / Bearing weight / But I love this city / This state / This country / Is too large.” Even if she has thought about moving to Canada, she loves the red, white and blue.

DiFranco’s songs and poems ebb and flow in our culture, with the inevitabilities of democracy and gender but also the fight our freedom allows. Verses shows her fight, a record of her career and the songs that previously built a loyal fan base around the poet and musician.

Ani’s sketches, many simply ink and White-Out, are swirling abstracts of bodies, finger paintings, bright interiors, eerie night landscapes and portraits of boots and lizards that illustrate her poems to a T.Her conversation with Sekou Sundiata gives readers a portrait of the artist, showing how Old Left and humor all play a part in her creative process in this book that she calls “one long rambling folk song of me.”