Me in Gibber

By Princess Yvonne Dumas

Me In Gibber is a chronological anthology of creative writing and artwork, meant to capture the author’s childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.  Princess Yvonne Dumas writes the book in a manner that addresses the human condition as it applies to her youth.  The poems tell an autobiographical story while the prose omits the details of traditional anecdotes.  Including artwork, Me In Gibber includes different art forms for Dumas to communicate with the reader.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 20, 2005
• ISBN: 9781418494476

Princess Yvonne Dumas

Princess Yvonne Dumas was born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey.  Her previous work has been published through The International Library of Poetry, but Me In Gibber is Dumas’ first book.  Mostly poetic as a writer, Dumas focuses on creative writing with nonfiction undertones, predominantly autobiographical.  Also a lover of fine arts, she combines visual artistry with the written word.  Dumas is also the author of an independent publication, titled First Love Lament. 

Book preview

© 2005 Princess Yvonne Dumas.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 02/21/05

ISBN: 978-1-4184-9447-6(ebk)

ISBN: 1-4184-9445-3 (sc)

ISBN: 1-4184-9446-1 (dj)

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

Why This Is In Your Hands

Preface

Part One – Young and Passionate

Part Two – Youth Betrayed and Passion Incarnate

Part Three – Youth and Passion Reconciled

After word

The Most Important Part Of The Book

To the element, Oxygen…

…for giving me the physical ability to experience the experiences.

Why This Is In Your Hands

I knew I had to pursue a creative life after my Fordham University graduation in 2001. It was a new time for me, and I excited myself with the prospect of the happiness I had now supposedly earned. I was only twenty-one, but I already knew that fate has a way of mocking you when you assume she will work in your favor. So, I took my time with this project, even though the bulk of the writing for what would become Me In Gibber had existed for over a decade. Two years passed by since my walk down the sunny, grass-carpeted Edward’s Parade at Rose Hill, and I did not tell anyone that I was thinking about publishing my work. At that point in my life, I was better known for my music and my passionate aspiration to perform on a stage than for my amateur writing.

When I realized how personal this book became, I knew I compromised my poetry’s ability to allow the reader to decipher his or her own applicability to it. When I first began entering poetry contests to stretch my creative muscles, I never needed to get personal with the reader. Readers and judges simply placed a qualitative value (or lack thereof) on my writing, not my life. It was difficult for anyone to determine if my poems were based on personal events and inspired by real people. Although I did not want to make the autobiographical content of Me In Gibber overshadow the poems, I wanted to infuse the book with a greater purpose. I did not want to make things easy for myself, writing an anthology of what I thought were my good poems. That seemed self-lauding long before I had any reason to sing myself congratulatory sonnets. It is this desire to write a book with and about my poems that has provided for elements of ambiguity, to preserve the art that is poetry, and yet to allow the reader an experience, not just a reading. So it is in this convoluted manner that I found a purpose—to identify with the reader through my life and my poetry.

Because of the time (three years) spent organizing the book, there is nothing insignificant in Me In Gibber. Every word, accentuated by carefully elaborated visual images of myself, has its purpose and direct link to something else written, drawn, or implied. By no means do I want the reader to entertain the idea that I consider myself unbelievably interesting. In hindsight, now that the book is complete, it is somewhat amusing to write an autobiographical piece, presenting a collection of my work as if I were a celebrity with whom many are enamored. Yet, this is precisely the reason I chose to get personal now. This is a hopeful piece of literature from a young woman who dreams of someday becoming the type of person who is worthy of success. Everyone has a story to tell, a tale to explain why they are the way they have become, a beginning before a climax, and a treasure chest full of regrets and accomplishments in equal shares. Why wait for the curiosity of others to provide the map and X?

There is a structure to Me In Gibber that I would like to explain, to ensure that the reader follows the flow of this book. This is an autobiographical anthology of my poetry, prose, and the visuals created by Liz Magic Laser, Liam Kersting and myself. I have tried to write everything in chronological order, beginning from when I was thirteen years old to the present-day, a little over ten years later. There are three chapters to the book, serving as broad timelines. I introduce each chapter with prose that foreshadows the spirit of the poems to follow. Each poem is introduced by a memoir-like excerpt of autobiographical information relevant to the subsequent poem. At the end of each chapter, I bring the stage of my life into a complete circle by closing with an image, meant to link the prose from the beginning to my development into the next chapter.

The first chapter, Part One, encapsulates my adolescent years, before going off to college, but without omitting references to the childhood I recall. There are some poems that I could not actually pinpoint the year in which they were created, but I knew they preceded my graduation from grammar school. When I encountered originals of these old ramblings, I often giggled at my amateur writing, but I could not dismiss the authenticity of the emotions expressed. Indeed these sad, little ramblings are the predecessors of whatever virtue may be found in my adult writing later on in the book. After some tweaking, I added the earliest poems I could find to this collection, as if I had written them in high school, when in fact I had just edited them during that time. It will become evident that my writing style matures throughout the collection as I, too, physically and mentally age from poem to poem, since I begin with the poetry of a child and end with the writings of the woman that child has become.

The work in Part Two alleviated me from tweaking duties, because I did not need to edit the poems so much. This section focuses on my four years at Fordham University, living in The Bronx, and being on my own for the first time. By the time I graduated high school, I had journals in which to record my poetry, and I kept them consistent throughout college. I wrote every day, because I was simultaneously writing songs. What did not become a poem became a song and vice-versa. I probably spent more time creating in college than studying, but there are no regrets here. A good number of the poems written for Part Two are the skeleton lyrics of some of my original songs. By the arrival of my college graduation, I was aware of my interest in pursuing the arts, and I created daily. I began freelancing, (both musically and with my writing), trying to gain experience without telling anyone that I had changed my original career plans. I was a pre-law double major in English and psychology, and somehow, I knew that if I failed at pursuing my artistic whims, fingers would start their wagging.

The last chapter, Part Three, finds the final portion of the chronological anthology/memoir—current time. Even as I write this introduction, there are poems being allowed into Me In Gibber, because I want there to be a freshness to the timeline. It is probably the most tumultuous stage of my life, perhaps because I am living it now. I am sure I thought this about parts one and two when they were the current day.

It is very easy to reflect on oneself when life hits a low point. This book became my source for introspection and catharsis these past three years. It is now very difficult to let it go. In the spring of 2002, I hurt my back to the point where for a year and a half I was unable to do anything that went beyond standing for more than five minutes or walking in and out of a store with the help of my cane. Doctor’s orders had me limiting my piano playing to twenty minutes a day, a severe downsizing of my daily two-hour love affair with music. To this day, I dread slippery sidewalks in the winter and cannot enjoy a pleasant jog, but I no longer use a cane and I have enjoyed walking the streets of New York City again. Occasionally, the radiating pain in my back halts my piano practice, but it is nothing that my resumed yoga Asanas cannot fix. I consider tragedies a luxurious blessing now. They either provide me some form of growth, or at the very least, the