The Black Maria - Aracelis Girmay

\nPraise for Aracelis Girmay: \n Girmay's] every loss--she calls them estrangements--is a yearning for connection across time and place; her every fragment is a bulwark against ruin. --O, The Oprah Magazine \n \nTaking its name from the moon's dark plains, misidentified as seas by early astronomers, the black maria investigates African diasporic histories, the consequences of racism within American culture, and the question of human identity. Central to this project is a desire to recognize the lives of Eritrean refugees who have been made invisible by years of immigration crisis, refugee status, exile, and resulting statelessness. The recipient of a 2015 Whiting Award for Poetry, Girmay's newest collection elegizes and celebrates life, while wrestling with the humanistic notion of seeing beyond: seeing violence, seeing grace, and seeing each other better. \n \nto the sea \n \ngreat storage house, history \non which we rode, we touched \nthe brief pulse of your fluttering \npages, spelled with salt & life, \nyour rage, your indifference \nyour gentleness washing our feet, \nall of you going on \nwhether or not we live, \nto you we bring our carnations \nyellow & pink, how they float \nlike bright sentences atop \nyour memory's dark hair \n \nAracelis Girmay is the author of three poetry collections, the black maria; Kingdom Animalia, which won the Isabella Gardner Award and was a finalist for the NBCC Award; and Teeth. The recipient of a 2015 Whiting Award, she has received grants and fellowships from the Jerome, Cave Canem, and Watson foundations, as well as Civitella Ranieri and the NEA. She currently teaches at Hampshire College's School for Interdisciplinary Arts and in Drew University's low residency MFA program. Originally from Santa Ana, California, she splits her time between New York and Amherst, Massachusetts. \n\n