Every Watering Word by Tanya Manning-Yarde [Book Review]

Tanya Manning-Yarde, Ph.D., writes with a divine love that is as temporal as the earth beneath our feet and as other-worldly as one struck with ecstatic vision. She reminds us all — particularly women and especially women of color — that we attend a living church every day by just being. Our bodies are the sanctuaries; our cycles are the sacrificial rituals; our thoughts are the prayers; our actions the will of that which is greater; and our dreams the prophecies. You will not be able to read Every Watering Word without throwing your hands skyward.

my hallowed region/my carnal reason that I am the gate / through which God passes to replicate / my menses/my sabbath/reminds me / that for five days I am five Sundays” (from “Menstruation is My Poetry”)

“Menstruation is My Poetry” is followed by “A Mecca of Stretch Marks,” “This/A Woman’s Geography,” “The Dreams of Brown Mothers,” “The North Star, for All Women Warriors” and on and on — a 116-page spiritual experience in 67 poems. This is a writer whose voice somehow has no denomination, only awakening, as she speaks to the complexity of traditional African-American Christianity amidst oppression and biblical-levels of violence.

Every Watering Word has symbolism and sexuality for days. Like a modern sequel to the Song of Solomon captured from the bride’s womanist perspective, her poetry explores race, gender, marriage, and motherhood with a sense of reverence. Manning-Yarde does not shy away from naming life’s realities. From birth to death, past to present, Manning-Yarde finds space for sacred acts in every day life — even in the shower(!)

What saves my soul more than riches of this land? / Why I seek redemption of soul, resolved to stand? / What returns my soul back home from life’s sinking sand? / It’s the blood, blood, blood of the Lamb.” (from “Blood of the Lamb”)

While her contemporary Carla M. Cherry feeds the soul, Manning-Yarde resurrects it. For anyone on a path of spiritual awakening, I highly recommend Every Watering Word for its delineation of sacred power and universal Truths.

Manning-Yarde is a freelance writer and educator from New York City. A graduate of Rutgers University and University at Albany, she recently worked as a copy editor and contributing writer for Bronze Magazine. She is a freelance blogger for the annual Montclair Film Festival in Montclair, NJ as well as blogger for a personal website.

We were from the exhalation of / Ether and ethos, / fusing and spooling / Ancestral imaginings into / Seedlings seeking soil, unfolding / Into roots, absorbing, charged to / Burrow deep into Mother Earth’s mouth / Soak in every watering word.” (from “We are Commissioned for Greatness)

Prior to pursuing a career as a writer, Manning-Yarde was a high school English/Language Arts teacher, Assistant Professor, Instructional Coach and an educational consultant. Her poems have been published by Literary Mama, Memory House and Random Sample Review. She published her first book, Every Watering Word (2017), through Wasteland Press. Inspired by her dissertation titled Literacy as Contextualized Action and homeschooling her two sons until school age, she is drafting a book on literacy and homeschooling. as well as a new collection of poetry.

Look for Every Watering Word on Amazon and Goodreads.

love is soul peace / unrehearsed thoughts and dialogue / unfiltered and indigenous / access to another soul” (from “love is”)