A review of on a date with disappointment by Najya Williams

Reviewed by Charles Rammelkamp

on a date with disappointment
by Najya Williams
Button Poetry
2025, $16.00, 54 pages, ISBN: 978-1-63834-130-7

As the title of Najya Williams’ heartfelt poetry collection suggests, her predominant theme is dealing with adversity, whether personal, racial, gender-based or a mix of them all. The very first piece, “life story #29,” states the case. It’s a short, witty prose poem about God one day visiting her creation. “God is not met with reverence — only disappointment.” Such is the nature of living. Indeed, it is a “generational curse,” as Williams states in the following pantoum.

Women are the main ones who take the brunt, face the challenge. Williams elaborates on this in “introducing…,” “an ode to Black only or first daughters in their 20s who live alone and have a therapist,” “what couldn’t be excised,” “a Black girl’s incantation for freedom and liberation” and elsewhere throughout the book. “a Black girl’s incantation…,” with an opening instruction to “recite with caution,” ends with the triumphant stanza:

thank You in advance for this gift
and the strength to overcome
to soon realize, in full body and mind,
that this battle has already been won.

The poem is made up of six four-line stanzas, all with this ABCB rhyme scheme. Form, both metrical and visual, is an important aspect of Williams’s poetry. She deliberately shapes her verse to meet her message. “first stake,” another poem whose theme is the added burdens of being born a female, is in the form of a cross (“but as i / stand here, with my hands around this prickly, wooden post, I am / nothing more than a spectacle of warning.”). The words of “vanishing act” spiral in to a black hole at the center (“Close your eyes. Now open.”).”conversations with myself” and “conversations with myself my abuser,” on facing pages, are presented with black lettering on a white background and white lettering on a black background, the messages like thesis and antithesis, the first ending:

I believe in you
more than I
count on my next breath.
The right alignment of “…myself” appears to kiss the left alignment of “…my abuser”:

there will always be a limit
to how much I’m able to believe
in the gift you’re supposed to be.

Repetition is one of Najya Williams’ most important lyric strategies. Certain poignant lines are frequently repeated, giving them resonance, enriching and amplifying their meaning. Take “but the memories,” for instance, a poem about heartbreak and resilience. “But the memories have long scabbed over” is repeated five times in this 27-line poem, italicized in the final line. “The scars may never heal — fully at least” is repeated four times.

Other poems in which she uses this strategy include “mirror, mirror” (“Now’s the time to be free” and “Don’t you see the power staring back at you?” both repeated), and “from the rubble” (“from the rubble of our love” and “Perhaps enough material to ignite a new flame”), and “All Praise the Wolf Moon of 2023,” and of course her impressive pantoums – “generational curse retold,” “introducing…,” “for the suns who aren’t allowed to stop shining: a pantoum,” and “wine drunk” – have repetition built into the form. The sestina that ends On a Date with Disappointment, “let this sestina be safe,” likewise embraces the repetition of words as a component of the form. In addition to an abecedarian going down the page from A to Z, five short “life story #” poems – 29, 24, 23, 17, 11 – punctuate the collection in this repeating fashion, providing a rhythm to her perspective. “life story # 24,” for instance, reads:

Black girl born with an old soul full of molasses grew up to become a
Black woman with baggage left behind generation after generation.

“epistle for adelphis asiya,” “take a chance on us,” “wine drunk,” “sweet tooth” and “on men with inferiority complexes who pursue fire-forged women: an abecedarian” take on the  more personal disappointments that are based in romantic relationships. “take a chance on us” begins:

Every cell in my body begs me not to fall again,
in love or into the trap of sadism under disguise.

It’s a poem about a disappointing relationship with the underlying caution of “once burned, twice shy.” Is it ever safe to be so vulnerable? After the bad experience, there’s “a portrait / stored within us, warning the present and future versions / of ourselves to beware of trusting….”

The Bible theme that we’ve seen (e.g., “generational curse retold”) is expanded in “John 11:35 [Unrevised],” a take on the famous “Jesus wept” New Testament passage in The Gospel According to John in which Jesus’ compassion for the less fortunate takes center stage. Along with Lazarus, Williams name checks Bianca Davenport, Tyre Nichols and several other Black and/or trans individuals who’ve suffered from police brutality.

But On a Date with Disappointment ends on a triumphant note. Najya Williams invokes the ancestors for strength and inspiration throughout the collection, and she does so again in her sestina (“I can hear the matriarchal voice inside me telling me to be unyielding”), which ends:

The battle was well fought and almost won, but hatred
is no match for she who is Black and woman and unyielding.
She has claimed her victory, and ultimately, cemented her existence.

It’s an uplifting conclusion to a series of poems occasionally fraught with anxiety, frustration and heartbreak. There’s little to be disappointed about on a date with disappointment.

About the reviewer: Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore. His poetry collection, A Magician Among the Spirits, poems about Harry Houdini, is a 2022 Blue Light Press Poetry winner. A collection of poems and flash called See What I Mean? was recently published by Kelsay Books, and another collection of persona poems and dramatic monologues involving burlesque stars, The Trapeze of Your Flesh, was just published by BlazeVOX Books.