Poetry. In Jennifer Bartell's Only Believe, belief is hard, necessary, and constant work, as she integrates the long aftermath of a childhood experience of sexual assault with what she knows about family, religion, and the place she calls home. Using a variety of poetic and other modes-prayer, midrash, interview, persona poem, and ekphrasis, among others-Bartell delves deeply into the emotional material of her life. A key figure in the poems is Moonsie, the grandmother to whom she owes so much but who could not protect her from the harm she long lived with in secret. Moonsie's own story, one of struggle and resilience, is a complicated legacy that Bartell lovingly accepts and honors. In the end, she takes us past anger and grief into wonder and joy as she celebrates the woman and poet she has become.
Carolyne Wright, who selected the book for the 2023 Hilary Tham Capital Collection at The Word Works, says, "Only Believe is a sort of blues midrash, transposing ancient stories from the Bible and traditions of the sanctified Black church, in which Bartell's speaker was raised, into the story of a young girl's struggle to believe in herself. From its opening "Oh" of praise to its penultimate "Behold: It is good," this collection is one coherent whole, a story that grips us as it recreates the world of the speaker's rural childhood, where she is watched over by her grandmother Moonsie, the tutelary presence brooding over this story and its teller like a spirit over the deep, the turbulent water of the speaker's inner life, until the speaker can finally break the silencing spell of abuse and find her own self-affirmation."
Tara Betts, author of Refuse to Disappear and Break the Habit, adds that "Bartell's Only Believe carefully treads through remembering childhood assault confounded with good memories that some would struggle to keep, including memories that elders lose if we're not quick enough to catch them. These poems are part oral history and part affirmation, but this collection complicates faith and walks readers closer to truth, healing, and forgiveness and standing tall in a grandmother's house."