Description
Poetry. African & African American Studies. Women's Studies. JoAnne McFarland asks, if we are our bodies, what do we do when they betray us? When the life leaves them? When we cannot convince them to reach for what we want to become? Says Leslie McGrath, "Duality runs through the collection; the poems read as conversations between the conscious and unconscious, the personal versus the public. JoAnne McFarland offers the body in thrall, in love, the body etched by ritual, by shame, the Black body, the female body, the body fully human. This collection is a revelation." Janet Kaplan calls this book "a moving picture—text in cinematographic jump cut, close up, and chiaroscuro—of a Black woman as she embodies herself and those she loves and mourns—lives cut down way too soon, stricken, murdered, silenced. For McFarland, identifying the body also means identifying the soul that longs for release and the passions that yearn for fulfillment right here: love and justice embodied, in full measure."
Author Bio
JoAnne McFarland is a Brooklyn poet, painter, and curator. Her previous publications include Loose Horse in the Valley, A Modern American Lullaby (Red Glass Books), 13 Ways of Looking at a Black Girl (Gold Leaf Books), and Acid Rain (Willow Books). Her artwork is part of many private and public collections, including the Library of Congress, the Columbus Museum of Art, Dynegy, Inc., and the U.S. Embassy, Togolese Republic. She is the former Exhibitions Director of A.I.R. Gallery, the first artist-run gallery in the United States specifically for women artists.
Author City: BROOKLYN, NY USA