In her fourth book, the award-winning Derricotte focuses on the aftermath of slavery, continued sexism and violence within the family. These poems plunge into the psychology of race and gender and other key components of identity. . . . Her work reaches out into the black and white and comes up with meaning that is often complex and rich—in short, gray. . . . Derricotte delivers frankness and hope through her thoughtful probing of encounters with complex racial and sexual relations.
Part of the charm of Derricotte's work - despite its raw and upsetting subject matter - is its extreme readability, from start to finish. In plain language that does not settle for simplicity or cliche, these poems probe being at its root - sexually, spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually - and recount how violence-both physical and mental-ravages the self. . . . Recommended for all poetry collections.
Derricotte's language feels, as usual, fresh and urgent, but Tender is a highly crafted volume, with poems lodged in an intricate structure. . . . Derricotte's range of diction, form, and subject is grand.
In her fourth book, the award-winning Derricotte focuses on the aftermath of slavery, continued sexism and violence within the family. These poems plunge into the psychology of race and gender and other key components of identity. . . . Her work reaches out into the black and white and comes up with meaning that is often complex and rich—in short, gray. . . . Derricotte delivers frankness and hope through her thoughtful probing of encounters with complex racial and sexual relations.”
—Publishers Weekly
"Part of the charm of Derricotte's work - despite its raw and upsetting subject matter - is its extreme readability, from start to finish. In plain language that does not settle for simplicity or cliché, these poems probe being at its root - sexually, spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually - and recount how violence-both physical and mental-ravages the self. . . . Recommended for all poetry collections."
—Library Journal
"Raw, honest and provocative. It hits those vulnerable spots in us where we question our openness to such issues as racial harmony and sexual freedom. . . . This is an emotionally compelling collection, one that lives for the reader in its stark images."
—Kliatt
"Derricotte's language feels, as usual, fresh and urgent, but Tender is a highly crafted volume, with poems lodged in an intricate structure. . . . Derricotte's range of diction, form, and subject is grand."
—Women's Review of Books
"In sections of Tender, her new book of poems,...a light-skinned black woman, focuses intensely and wonderfully on blackness....Dericotte's language feels, as usual, fresh and urgent, but Tender is a highly crafted volume, with poems lodged in an intricate structure....Dericotte's range of diction, form and subject is grand....She also excels in surreal litany, the loose, open line of the chant, as "Dead Baby Speaks" to the mother who permitted the father's beatings....For people loved and tortured by the same hands, nothing is simple....in the final, dazzling "spoke" it's hard not to feel release, from "The Body Awakening" to the book's concluding poem....Thus "tender" is transformed from absolue victimization to the open space of love." -- The Women's Review of Books
