The Government of Nature by Afaa Michael Weaver (review)

“Free and Easy Wandering,” Zhuangzi’s (Chuang-Tzu) celebrated exploration of being and transformation, has received attention from critics, poets, and philosophers since the third century B.C.E. This thirty-chapter collection of parabolic tales and commentaries delivers his critique of formality and artifice. Throughout the work Zhuangzi advocates pursuing possibilities that may exist or propel an individual “beyond” through the formulation of organic relationships between the self and the world at large. He makes his case in the work’s opening chapter, providing a fantastic account of metamorphosis in which a giant fish (K’un) becomes a colossal bird (P’eng). Drawing from Taoist, Confucian, and Buddhist principles, “Free and Easy Wandering” stands among the most significant and influential works in Chinese literary and philosophical tradition. The imprint of Zhuangzi’s thought is especially evident in the Tang poetry of the ninth century, particularly in verse by Hanshan (Cold Mountain).

In The Government of Nature, poet Afaa Michael Weaver explores matters of expression, experience, and perception that find connection with Zhuangzi and “Free and Easy Wandering.” The volume extends Weaver’s considerable poetic dialogue with classical Chinese literature and philosophy, in addition to charting his experiments in English poetics and explorations of African American experience. Weaver’s project in The Government of Nature presents variations on the free and easy wandering motif, beginning with in the volume’s frontispiece. In these nine lines, which feature the Chinese character for “heart” (□) and recurrent heart imagery, Weaver establishes thematic correspondences with his own struggles with heart disease and the heart wrenching emotional struggles he chronicles throughout the volume. The poet’s notes on these lines state that while “no English translation [of these lines] has been done to date, it can be summarily taken as saying: ‘A quiet heart can be achieved with utter devotion and sincerity’ ” (65).

Weaver’s devotion to craft and the sincerity of his approach to incorporating elements of Chinese literature and philosophy into his poetry distinguish his voice within African American letters and among American verse writ large. Throughout The Government of Nature, the poet moves freely, permitting his verse to wander and ultimately transcend boundaries. The volume is organized into four sections, each opening with a quotation from the Dao De Jing, Cold Mountain’s poetry, or Buddhist reflection from Ying-an. These epigraphs contextualize the verse that follows, framing the philosophical-literary fusion that Weaver pursues in The Government of Nature. In this respect the poetry functions as a bridge, connecting experiences drawn from Black America to enduring works drawn from the Chinese tradition.

The Government of Nature offers a profound set of poetic reflections on what Laozi (Lao Tsu) described in the Dao De Jing as “the way of things.” Weaver’s verse formulates questions concerned with individual perception, family memory, and addressing personal challenges while gesturing to the possibility of transcendence. In poems such as “For James,” “The Touched,” “The Untouched” and “Washing the Car with My Father,” Weaver conveys searing pain, deep wonder, and profound consequence. These moments emerge with an unvarnished simplicity and keen directness through the poet’s language and imagery. This is seen, for example, in “Cold Mountain,” the final poem of the volume’s third section, when the poet writes,

It is not the stone of the cave’s hollow waywithout heat or the dead stillness in a tiger’s eyesturning to dig razor claws deep into soft flesh

the way death aligns itself with life, none of thisis what Cold Mountain means, leaving the cityclimbing up into the hills to pull time away.

(53)

Continuing his poetic movement along Zhuangzi’s pathway, Weaver eventually enters a realm “beyond” space and time. Upon his arrival in this rarified place, the poet states, “At Cold Mountain I found dirty / mirrors where I hoped to see my own clean face” (53).

In his notes for The Government of Nature, Weaver describes the volume as part two of a trilogy in progress. The...