Read This! Books with Street Cred

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Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses

I loved this book. I wasn’t drawn to the cover at all, but the topic she was writing about did draw me (yoga, as well as the subtitle: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga poses), so I jumped in with both feet. An endorsement from Elizabeth Gilbert didn’t hurt either. What kept me reading though was the writing. I love the way Claire writes, the way she morphs words into something new; the way she uses language. . . her, um, languaging. Some examples: effortful, forking, efforting, jollity, constellated…

Also her descriptions: “He poured himself the grimmest bowl of cereal ever poured.” (pg. 127). I loved her description of Rodney Yee (pg 123): “…a very buff, eternally youthful Chinese American man with a long ponytail and a serene gaze…”…Yep, that’s Rod the Bod.

I also, for the first time in quite a while, came across words in my novel reading that were not immediately familiar to me, that I had to stop and ponder. This is good! Exciting! It’s been a while since that happened. Claire’s previous experience as a book editor and critic and free-lance writer prior to her writing this book come through loud and clear.

Her book is part memoir with some history of yoga mashed in. The way she talks about her 20’s as being “spent exploring” reminded me of how Amy Wood talks about modern young adult hood in her book Life Your Way (previously reviewed book #60).

Claire hides from her family by going to yoga. She hides from her emotions by going to yoga, as well, but when she gets into a pose…bam! There they are, just waiting for her to face and embrace them (sometimes this results in tears falling). She escapes through yoga as a young wife and mother the way she escaped through books as a young girl in a complicated family-of-origin situation. “A book was a terrific place for me. I went there as often as I could.” (pg.144). This was me.

Oh, and she vomits. A lot.
Sometimes you need to back away from something to gain a little perspective on it, whether it’s your kids, your marriage, your career, your yoga…or yourself. Finally, probably the best message I got from this book is this (and I’m paraphrasing her quote from pg. 297): Act like the person you want to be, when and if you can.

Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses By Claire Dederer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Review by Karen Creamer of Literary Bookpost Salisbury NC