Lara – Bernardine Evaristo

I’ve been meaning to read Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo but never really got into the book. I was intrigued when I found an semi-biographical poetry novella by Evaristo called Lara, and decided to give that a go, instead.

Lara was originally published in 1997. Through poetry, the story roughly follows the historical timeline of Evoristo’s family, going back 150 years. The reader gets glimpses of her grandparents, detailed stories of her parents, and delves even deeper into the experiences of the young Evaristo herself. Her heritage is varied with unexpected geographical locations that we as readers get to visit. Not unsurprisingly, the young Evaristo is struggling to find her identity in this mix. The biggest confusion, as I think is very common, is not coming from Evaristo herself, but from the society around her and their ignorance and reactions.

I think using poetry is a good way to tell a biography where a lot of the history isn’t known. It lets Evaristo dig deeper into the emotions and be less concerned about historical facts. The early events are sketchy and possibly not fully chronological but filled with emotional expression and personal perceptions.

The poetry form makes it easier for the reader to jump from location to location. We land in Nigeria, Brazil, Germany and Ireland before arriving in England, but each place has its own character and atmosphere which shapes the overall narrative.

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while know that I have a preference for poetry books with a clear story that connects the poems. This is a very good example of this form of storytelling and it’s expertly used too.

I read through Lara very quickly. That is the advantage of using poems like chapters or scenes in the story. As long as the story holds you in its grip, you continue from one poem to the next, to the next… Perhaps the individual poems don’t get the attention they deserve in favour of the overarching story, but then you can always pause and reread if a phrase, a stanza or a specific poem catches your attention.

It’s interesting that Evaristo has immigrant ancestry, not just from her African and Brazilian side of the family, but also white immigrant family members from Germany and Ireland. We are often biased to immediately think of immigration from certain parts of the world, but immigration has occurred from a vast variety of locations over a wider period of time than what we normally take into account.

I recommend reading Lara and I hope more writers use this form of poetry storytelling. Used the right way, it really can be an intriguing story form.

2024 Writing Plans

Do you set out your intentions at the beginning of the year? The new year is well underway and so are my writing and design plans for the coming twelve months. Although I love planning, writing out what I want to achieve in the coming months doesn’t come naturally to me. It always feels like too much can happen between January to December to throw the plan out the window.

For the writing side of my life, I have three big goals for this year. I finally have a novel that I believe is good enough, or commercial enough, to attract an agent, so that is the biggest goal this year. The story has received a lot of attention and praise from my writing group and from friends. At the moment, I’m doing a final edit of the story while researching the agents I want to contact. Submissions are always scary and you have to brace yourself for all the rejections but you can’t win the jackpot unless you play the game.

After every time I have self-published, I’ve said I won’t do it again. So far I have never managed to keep that promise for very long. I have two projects I’d like to complete this year. One is an experimental collection of texts revolving around the seasons. This book has grown from a single short story I wrote for a competition. I now have a solid plan for it, but I need to finish writing the texts. The other is a colouring book. I love colouring in and find it very relaxing. I’m intrigued by the challenge of creating a book myself. I haven’t chosen which project to go for first.

I also want to finish the first draft of a story that has been at the back of my mind for a few years. It’s very research-heavy and therefore it’s taken me a long time to start writing. After publishing What Good Could Grow Here, my poetry novella, I decided to just write this other story and worry about the research later. I’m well on my way to writing a first draft. I intend to finish it during the first half of the year.

In what direction are you heading this year?