Description
Book SynopsisIn her original author’s note to the 1999 edition, Akilah Oliver writes,“What I am trying to do in these poems is investigate the non-linear synapses between desire, memory, blackness (as both a personal identity and a non-essentialist historical notion), sexuality and language.” the she said dialogues: flesh memory proves to be not only still timely twenty years later, but essential reading for understanding intersectional politics and poetics in our current moment.
Trade Review"Oliver passed away in 2011, and many poems read like benedictions, but what strikes me is how useful dialogues feels now. These poems affirm a Black queerness and a poetics of the body, while also mourning and questioning what these things might mean: It is a “pleasure to be here earthling in this time of seductive tears staining the ground of our planet.”"—Ken Chen, NPR
"the she said dialogues: flesh memory is not your usual debut collection and maybe that’s because it is the work of an already mature poet, in her late thirties, and embodies a fully realized and distinctive aesthetic. In particular, her reconception of the poetic line is what gives the work its power… It’s the sequencing of such units within each line that gives Oliver’s best poems their serendipitous capaciousness, their unhistrionic emotional frankness, and their urgent rhythm—a distinctive sense of measure that reminds me of no one else’s."—Tourniquet Review
“I’m constantly surprised by Akilah Oliver’s poems, pieces. I’m watching her meanings slosh. Rhythms settle and rule. Quirky things come in: general hospital, junk antiques, 1948 . . . everything bobbing. It’s wonderous finally, eventually, always what language can be in the thrall of a compassionate and intricate sprit. The world changes around me and I know something new. With terrific ease her poems make the point that language is erotic. In a surgent moment of reading and writing, a voice bursts out of the foam, this tough new Aphrodite. She’s commanding and dangerous. Awake and alive.”—Eileen Myles
"Akilah Oliver’s dialogues remind me of a series of containers frantically held and I’m watching her meanings slosh. I’m constantly surprised by her poems, pieces. They unloose every handle I make for them. Rhythms settle and rule. Quirky things come in: general hospital, junk antiques, 1948…stuff bobs in her solution, but it’s wonderous finally, eventually ultimately what language can be in the thrall of a compassionate and intricate sprit. And the world changes around me because I know something new. Her poems are erotic which is beside the point. The point is that language is erotic. Always was. In the midst of a beautiful surging moment of reading and writing, a voice bursts out of the foam, this tough new Venus. She’s commanding and dangerous. Awake and alive."–Eileen Myles "From multiple and shifting subject positions, Akilah Oliver surveys the complex terrain of identity and sexuality with a concise intellectually engaged poetic language. As her sacred duty, she bares the naked truth of the double-edged poet’s word. This bolder sister outsider brings the sound of her distinct dream to the fanfare for the next millennium."—Harryette Mullen
