Speak My Soul
Poems on Migrations and Returns of a Native Son
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In this collection of poems Dr. Rudolph V. Vanterpool tries to paint word pictures, as it were, of lived experiences and their range of meanings to the experiencing subject at particular moments in spatial location and temporal nexus. He is a Caribbean-American who carries around in his heart and soul abiding memories of his beloved birthplace in the Caribbean. It is from that actually lived neo-colonial background that he endeavors to bridge cultural differences and build bonds of friendship with others in the various lands of his migrations. A good case could be made that migrant relocations to foreign lands and returns to birth place habitats have ways of bringing us face to face with experiences of multiple consciousness. And so it is that Rudolph V. Vanterpool's new poetry book, Speak My Soul, is a living testimony to what it means to be a resident of many places and to be repeatedly reminded of one's sense of double consciousness --or, more accurately, of one's sense of multiple consciousness at different times and places. While the author's poetic reflections are informed by his interdisciplinary philosophical approach -- in particular by his studies of law, philosophy, and religion, he provides both professional educators and lay readers alike, occasions for gaining deeper insight into the complicated dialectics of being-in-the-world that both unite us and alienate us from one another as a living species. Dr. Vanterpool writes in his Introduction, “The thematics that have captivated my imagination have no exclusive home in my own lived environment or anywhere else, for that matter. We are a vulnerable living species as a whole to telling tales of each other's looks --about our minds, our souls, our hearts, our bodies. We are gazed upon by others and assigned labels not of our own making. We gaze upon the presence of others in our spheres of being and systematically try to size up the significance of their actions toward us. Often, without full awareness of our justifying reasons, we make up our individual minds how the Other is to be spoken about. Sometimes I see reflections of my Being in you, while you may be making every effort not to see even a scintilla of yourself in me. This very vulnerability, however, has served as the stuff from which epic histories of a people have been preserved; it has been the cement in which fictions have hardened into so-called objective 'truths,' and its ensuing symbols have transformed certain persons into victims and others into self-deluded lords over other human beings. I cannot conveniently overlook the beauty of the beast in several of the external meanings imposed upon my identity nor casually turn my eyes away from the ugly images I sometimes portray to represent my indifferent neighbor who seems all too enamored with misinformed fictions of personal identity, power arrangements, and racial and gender ideologies.” The terrain of poetic outpourings is therefore inclusive, encompassing a wide range of cross-cultural and inter-generalization matters of interests to our lives. Above all, Vanterpool believes that the principle of inclusiveness is a realizable goal only if we allow members of different cultural groupings to articulate their societal interests and their highest aspirations from the standpoint of the uniqueness of their own lives. This ideal social arrangement works best when there is mutuality of respect for each other and where institutional arrangements are permitted to flourish through observance of value-norms of tolerance for difference, reciprocity of knowledge-exchange, and dismantling of hierarchical political systems of domination. As a general rule, when the poet puts his creative insights to writing, the end-product is not just a sum of stylistically arranged sentences in strict compliance with time-honored conventions of appropriate semantic speech patterns and/or grammatical syntax. The inspired poet aims to have his or her readers find certain special connections with the subject-matter written about, associations that have the real potential to critically alter our perceptions for the better. Hence, while the formal elements of poetic expression ought to be arranged in ways that are aesthetically appealing, the poetic word needs to be expressed with meticulous care so that one's reading audience will come away intellectually enlightened and emotionally and spiritually challenged.
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About the Book
Speak My Soul addresses the challenges, strivings, aspirations, anxieties, and perplexities of the human condition. The author's prose form is stylistically free. Characteristically, several of his poems are composed with meticulous attention to rhyming tendencies, while at other times he just lets lines flow as they come to birth in his soul. He tries to locate liberating speech-acts that are able to resonate intimately, from a universal standpoint, with readers of his prose. The book's four-part organization is meant to take readers along on a reflective odyssey through a web of lived-experiences. The idea of the self is the foundational thought and accordingly becomes the core preoccupation of Part One of the text. What is there about personal identity that captivates our imagination to such a degree that we want to talk about ourselves? We aren't solitary souls wandering this earth. Part Two sets its sights upon the presence of others within the zones of our activities. We are a global family of thinking, connected living human beings. In a sort of paradoxical sense, we can come to know ourselves better when we are self-consciously aware of how we are gazed upon by others. Part Three turns to a vertical gaze heavenward. The author seeks to place into the foreground the believer's earthly pilgrimage. What exactly is the point of this spiritual conversion that persuades us of an ultimate other-worldly citizenship? The writer is a practicing professional philosopher. He confirms his love for philosophy by sharing pearls of his familiarity with wisdom's terrains --the multi-faceted adventures of the life of the mind. He does, however, reckon with the limitations of a thoroughgoing naturalistic philosophical temperament. His consciousness of the human condition and of the life world at large is informed by larger cosmic considerations--an eternalistic point of view Vanterpool speaks of as "transcendism ". Vanterpool openly meditates upon the walk of faith as the center piece of a life that is lived well and more completely. The tenets of natural reason fall short in this regard.
About the Author
Rudolph V. Vanterpool (Ph.D.), is Professor of Philosophy and former Chairman of the Philosophy Department at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Dr. Vanterpool, a graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois, earned his doctorate in philosophy from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, and his JD. from The University of West Los Angeles School of Law. He has published scholarly articles in professional journals in his fields of expertise (Ethics & Value Theory; Philosophy of Law) as well as authoring chapters in anthologies. In 1999 he was named CSU Outstanding Professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills for exemplary teaching, scholarship, and professional service, His new released book, In Job's Sandals; From Riches to Rags to Rewards” (Vantage Press), has been just released in April 2010) Professor Vanterpool's pragmatically based philosophical training has provided him with strong academic and literary foundations to write the present poetry manuscript, Speak My Soul. An advocate of interdisciplinary studies, Vanterpool is not a one-dimensional thinker with a worldview limited to mastery of abstract philosophical concepts and theories. His publications are informed by his knowledge of legal issues, ethical considerations, and cultural and religious concerns. Speak My Soul remains true to the spirit of his eclectic professional outlook There is something in this volume of poetry that should interest academicians and laypersons alike. He is a Caribbean-American visionary poet committed to creating poetry that speaks to our common finite Circumstance as members of the human family. Rather than dwelling on narrow parochial cultural preferences, he aims to craft poems that have universality of appeal. Readers of Speak My Soul will come away from the text feeling that the topics covered resonate with their own concrete life histories. Irrespective of nationality, race, gender, or religion, poetic expression can function as an intellectually liberating vehicle for better understanding ourselves, our world, and the hereafter.