by Alexis Spencer-Byers

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review by Sandra Young

IN URBAN VERSES, author and poet Alexis Spencer-Byers shares a personal response to the life lessons often roughly handed to her in America's deep South. She wrote her poetry and prose after a decade of immersion in a community that takes the social gospel seriously: Voice of Calvary Ministries in Jackson, Mississippi. Byers began her sojourn with this ministry intending to remain only a year. What convinced her to remain longer, however, were the people—some volunteers, some staffers—who taught her “what it looks like to be the people of God.”

The ministries of Voice of Calvary began in 1960 by Rev. John Perkins in rural Mendenhall, Mississippi. Perkins initiated a number of services for the poor in this African American community, including a health clinic, thrift store, and free legal assistance. Years later the ministry relocated to Jackson where Perkins continued his work. Large numbers of volunteers across the country joined to assist in either short-term assignments or in long-term employment. By the time Perkins relocated to Jackson, a city suffering from the urban ailments found in most American cities, community development had become a primary focus.

Thus Byers's image of the people of God is pieced together via urban encounters. She writes of what plagues today's American cities—crime, racism, and hopelessness. She also writes of what plagues American Christianity—ignorance of the mandate for social ministry, fear of the poor, and reluctance to mix with others who are different. Byers views these topics through spiritual and intensely personal lenses, however; she writes as a believer attempting to understand urban life from the context of her own identity as half Asian and half Caucasian.

Her collection actually begins even before the preface. One lone poem, “Location,” precedes the collection and succinctly examines and exposes the issue at the core of the social gospel: the reluctance to live and minister in an urban setting. She writes:

They say I'm brave to live here—
A courageous soul, more so than most
And I believe that they intend it
As a compliment to me
But what they fail to understand
Is the grave insult implied
To those I choose to live among
If being their neighbor
Makes me a hero (1)

The book's first official section, “Urban Verses,” further alludes to the misconceptions that accompany urban ministry. Byers opens this section with the poem “Body Language” which describes her fears upon approaching a group of bandanaed young men at night in a supermarket parking lot. If a group of black men assembles, does it automatically spell trouble? Byers discovers that her perceptions of such an assembly signal not external danger but an inward bent to stereotype.

Other poems, such as “Burglary,” reveal her feelings of victimization and vulnerability after her home in Jackson was repeatedly robbed. Later on in this section, “Traffic” describes a drug deal that takes place across the street from the author's home. Here she laments her powerlessness to stop a cycle of poverty, crime, and prison:

I wish I knew
Whom to blame
Or how to change
This reality on the street—
My street—
Before it claims another child
Too young grown old
Too soon ensnared
By the promise of escape
Only to be faced
With the threat of confinement
Of body, mind and soul (34)

The next section features poetry that focuses on spirituality and theology more than social injustices. “Peter Principles” begins by examining the fumblings of the disciple Peter; five poems center upon five separate and significant biblical passages that highlight Peter's journey with Christ. Then Byers moves to musings and reflections on spirituality and race. “Who I Am” hints at her own mixed racial background and castigates self-proclaimed experts who claim to promote racial equality. She writes:

Who gave you
Authority to trim
My family tree
Purging it of the variants
That don't fit neatly in
Your box “outside the box”? (62)

Subsequent sections in the collection offer new topics. “Motherhood” includes reflections not only on motherhood but poignant and private reminisces of Byers's attempt to adopt a child. Section four, “Love Songs,” comments sometimes ruefully on failed relationships. The spiritual applications are not always present in some of these poems, but the appeal to the universality of human struggle is quite evident. The final section “Yours, Mine and Ours” contains poems written in the voice of a fictitious Derek Johnson. Byers demonstrates ability and insight as she communicates the truths about ministry among the urban poor as well as the commitment needed to bring about racial reconciliation.

The contemplations found in Urban Verses render Byers's text a good read for those presently engaged in urban ministry or those seriously considering ministry among the nation's urban poor. Her own careful soul searching demands that others do the same. By the final page, the reader is challenged to consider urban ministry in a new light—the light of reflection. Furthermore, the reader is compelled to wrestle with his or her own perspectives on Christ's mandate to minister, America's poverty and crime rates, and the uneasy rhetoric often accompanying the church's conversations on racial reconciliation.

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