Black Maria

Aracelis Girmay was honored with a 2015 Whiting Award for Poetry. She is the author of two poetry collections, Teeth (Curbstone, 2007) and Kingdom Animalia (BOA Editions, 2011), which won the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also the author/illustrator of the collage-based picture book changing, changing (Braziller, 2005). Most recently, Girmay's poetry and essays have been published in Granta, Black Renaissance Noire, and PEN America, among other places. She has received grants and fellowships from the Jerome, Cave Canem, and Watson foundations, as well as Civitella Ranieri and the NEA. She is on the faculty of Hampshire College’s School for Interdisciplinary Arts and Drew University’s low residency M.F.A. program. Originally from Santa Ana, California, she splits her time between New York and Amherst, Massachusetts.

• CONTENTSelelegy 5prayer & letter to the dead 7to the sea (any) 15“& when it happens” 16“you are going now” 17“hands for pleasure, hands for mending” 18to the sea (any) 19“black, full of language” 20“Odysseus, his lungs full” 21“Claim, I, to be the poet making talk” 22“the febrile & opal” 23to the sea near lampedusa 24luam to the dead 25luam/ asa luam 26luam, who says to the dead 27“inside the sea, there is more” 28“The black-eyed woman” 29“to be near sea is to gleam” 30luam in the sea, to the survivors 31luam remembers massawa 32luam to her sibling 33luam cleaning house 34the luams speak of god 35luam, new york 36luam, asmera 37luam, umbertide, asmera, new york 38“Look! In another poem you are” 40luam mending clothes 41luam, new york 42luam, monterchi, italy 43to the sea 44“Why not, in addition, tell” 45“strange earth, strange” 46to the sea 47to the sea 48“praise the water, now” 49[collective messages] 50“I love the azucena so bring them to you” 51the luams 52on poetry & history 53the black maria 54The Black Maria 55Third Estrangement, With an Ending Loosely After Jonathan Ferrell 56The Woodlice, Fourth Estrangement 57The Figeaters, Fifth Estrangement 58First Estrangement 59Moon for Aisha 60Cooley High, Fifth Estrangement 62The Beauty of the World, Tenth Estrangement 64Second Estrangement 65Third Estrangement 66Fourth Estrangement, With a Petition for the Reunion of Jonathan & George Jackson 67