Dominique Christina
Autor(a) de Anarcha Speaks: A History in Poems (National Poetry Series)
About the Author
Dominique Christina was a classroom teacher at the secondary and post-secondary level for ten years. She was the National Poetry Champion in 2011 and the Women of the World Slam Champion in 2012 and 2014. She is the author of The Bones, the Breaking, the Balm; They Are All Me; and This Is Woman's mostrar mais Work. mostrar menos
Obras de Dominique Christina
Associated Works
Etiquetado
Conhecimento Comum
- Sexo
- female
- Organizações
- Deep Green Resistance
Membros
Resenhas
Anarcha Speaks: A History In Poems de Dominque Christina
Esta resenha foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Resenhistas do LibraryThing.This is a gritty and grizzly display of torture and truth. What human beings are capable of for the sake of race or beliefs. Or even the sick quest for knowledge. This was hard to get through. However these are subjects that we all need to know the horrors of.
Esta resenha foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Resenhistas do LibraryThing."fine. new hell, whatever."
(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. Trigger warning for violence inflicted on black bodies, including rape and medical experimentation.)
this bruise ain't no girl
she gone
she never gon be again
she too much a ghost even
for burial
###
when he left
seem like he stayed
like i kept
some of it
like i ain't
have no other way
and now Betsey say
i expecting...
how you translate
a bludgeonin to
a birth?
you tell me how
i'm suposed to
do that -
a baby.
from the mud pile...
a baby...
one more
thing i don't know
how to carry.
###
i say:
what you make a dem stars?
he say:
they just like us. sizzlin dead.
###
-- 4.5 stars --
Like his homeland, the man widely regarded as "the father of modern gynecology" built his wealth and success on the bodies of slaves. Specifically, enslaved black women who suffered debilitating complications from childbirth.
J. Marion Sims is credited with a number of advancements in the field of gynecology: He developed a precursor to the modern speculum, using a spoon and complicated series of mirrors. He built the first women's hospital in his backyard in Montgomery, Alabama, despite his reported disgust with women's anatomy. (He wrote in his autobiography, "if there was anything I hated, it was investigating the organs of the female pelvis.") Most famously, he developed a way of repairing vesicovaginal fistula.
Vesicovaginal fistula is caused during childbirth "when the woman's bladder, cervix, and vagina become trapped between the fetal skull and the woman's pelvis, cutting off blood flow and leading to tissue death. The necrotic tissue later sloughs off, leaving a hole. Following this injury, as urine forms, it leaks out of the vaginal opening, leading to a form of incontinence." Similarly, rectovaginal fistula can cause fecal incontinence; Sims explored treatment for this condition as well.*
And he did it all on the backs of the most vulnerable: enslaved black women.
Over a period of four years, Sims experimented on twelve female slaves who suffered complications from childbirth. He subjected each woman to multiple surgeries without the benefit of anesthesia (though some were given opium post-op). Sometimes he had an audience; on other occasions, the women themselves had to assist in Sims's procedures. Many were brought to him by their "owners," seeking to recoup their "investments." Sims purchased one woman outright so that he could experiment on her. Only three of these women's names resisted burial under the weight of history: Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy, all of whom suffered from fistula. Sims violated Anarcha thirteen times before he declared her a success.
In Anarcha Speaks, poet/activist/educator - and mother - Dominique Christina attempts to reconstruct Anarcha's life, imagining the events that might have landed her on Sims's doorstep/operating table/torture chamber. Sims doesn't even make an appearance until halfway through the book, giving us a chance to get to know Anarcha as a person, and not "just" the ill-fated woman in that horrifying Robert Thom painting. After this, Christina occasionally alternates their perspectives: slave/patient and doctor/"massa." I'm not sure I loved this convention: I think perhaps the story would have been more powerful coming from Anarcha and Anarcha alone; and besides, history is overflowing with the perspectives of privileged white men - do we really need to hear more? On the other hand, Sims's POV gives necessary context on how doctors/society regarded black women - and their pain.
Anarcha Speaks is powerful, raw, and visceral. I don't always love poetry because I don't usually "get" it, but Christina's prose cuts to bone. I can't exactly call Anarcha Speaks an enjoyable read, but it's a necessary one, and skillfully done. This tiny little powerhouse of a tome would equally be at home on a history syllabus or in a class on medical ethics as in a creative writing course.
* He also experimented on children and babies, in an attempt to treat trismus nascentium; these interventions were met with a hundred percent fatality rate, which he blamed on the mothers (all black). Naturally.
http://www.easyvegan.info/2019/04/30/anarcha-speaks-by-dominique-christina/… (mais)
(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. Trigger warning for violence inflicted on black bodies, including rape and medical experimentation.)
this bruise ain't no girl
she gone
she never gon be again
she too much a ghost even
for burial
###
when he left
seem like he stayed
like i kept
some of it
like i ain't
have no other way
and now Betsey say
i expecting...
how you translate
a bludgeonin to
a birth?
you tell me how
i'm suposed to
do that -
a baby.
from the mud pile...
a baby...
one more
thing i don't know
how to carry.
###
i say:
what you make a dem stars?
he say:
they just like us. sizzlin dead.
###
-- 4.5 stars --
Like his homeland, the man widely regarded as "the father of modern gynecology" built his wealth and success on the bodies of slaves. Specifically, enslaved black women who suffered debilitating complications from childbirth.
J. Marion Sims is credited with a number of advancements in the field of gynecology: He developed a precursor to the modern speculum, using a spoon and complicated series of mirrors. He built the first women's hospital in his backyard in Montgomery, Alabama, despite his reported disgust with women's anatomy. (He wrote in his autobiography, "if there was anything I hated, it was investigating the organs of the female pelvis.") Most famously, he developed a way of repairing vesicovaginal fistula.
Vesicovaginal fistula is caused during childbirth "when the woman's bladder, cervix, and vagina become trapped between the fetal skull and the woman's pelvis, cutting off blood flow and leading to tissue death. The necrotic tissue later sloughs off, leaving a hole. Following this injury, as urine forms, it leaks out of the vaginal opening, leading to a form of incontinence." Similarly, rectovaginal fistula can cause fecal incontinence; Sims explored treatment for this condition as well.*
And he did it all on the backs of the most vulnerable: enslaved black women.
Over a period of four years, Sims experimented on twelve female slaves who suffered complications from childbirth. He subjected each woman to multiple surgeries without the benefit of anesthesia (though some were given opium post-op). Sometimes he had an audience; on other occasions, the women themselves had to assist in Sims's procedures. Many were brought to him by their "owners," seeking to recoup their "investments." Sims purchased one woman outright so that he could experiment on her. Only three of these women's names resisted burial under the weight of history: Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy, all of whom suffered from fistula. Sims violated Anarcha thirteen times before he declared her a success.
In Anarcha Speaks, poet/activist/educator - and mother - Dominique Christina attempts to reconstruct Anarcha's life, imagining the events that might have landed her on Sims's doorstep/operating table/torture chamber. Sims doesn't even make an appearance until halfway through the book, giving us a chance to get to know Anarcha as a person, and not "just" the ill-fated woman in that horrifying Robert Thom painting. After this, Christina occasionally alternates their perspectives: slave/patient and doctor/"massa." I'm not sure I loved this convention: I think perhaps the story would have been more powerful coming from Anarcha and Anarcha alone; and besides, history is overflowing with the perspectives of privileged white men - do we really need to hear more? On the other hand, Sims's POV gives necessary context on how doctors/society regarded black women - and their pain.
Anarcha Speaks is powerful, raw, and visceral. I don't always love poetry because I don't usually "get" it, but Christina's prose cuts to bone. I can't exactly call Anarcha Speaks an enjoyable read, but it's a necessary one, and skillfully done. This tiny little powerhouse of a tome would equally be at home on a history syllabus or in a class on medical ethics as in a creative writing course.
* He also experimented on children and babies, in an attempt to treat trismus nascentium; these interventions were met with a hundred percent fatality rate, which he blamed on the mothers (all black). Naturally.
http://www.easyvegan.info/2019/04/30/anarcha-speaks-by-dominique-christina/… (mais)
me? a bruised ghost
i concentrate on
my teeth/ the roof of my mouth/
i'm tryna rub it smooth/ concentrate on not blinkin
see how long I can go til my eyes need to shut.
Anarcha was one of eleven slaves who were purchased by "father" of modern gynecology Dr Marion Sims for his research. Essentially torturing these women, Sims did his research (including surgeries) without offering pain relief or sedation. Our lauded study and history of medicine has for so long been polished of its shameful bits, but in this slender, intense volume of poetry, a name and voice is given to the very real, the very human sacrifice to our knowledge.
It's impossible to call this an "enjoyable" read, but it is gutting, gripping, and necessary. Giving voice to the ignored, Christina makes it imperative we know and understand the humans behind any learning we've gained. This volume can be read with now knowledge of Anarcha or Dr Sims; Christina's poems make clear what is occurring, and we can't pretend otherwise. We're given the opportunity to bear witness, to hold Anarcha with a tenderness and love she wasn't offered.
What makes this volume so important and timely is that horrifically, there is still such intense bias in the medical community toward people of color, especially those who are Black/of African descent. Numerous studies show that even now, black patients are not given the same pain management as white patients and that black pregnant women receive shockingly subpar medical treatment compared to white women. The seeds of these beliefs were planted with the forefathers of medicine and is part of a long history of of unethical treatment (like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and as documented in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks).
I love the cover design, too, with the soft figure and profile and Anarcha's name fuzzy -- but seeming to grow more firm, more clear. History might want to ignore her, but she will have her say.… (mais)
i concentrate on
my teeth/ the roof of my mouth/
i'm tryna rub it smooth/ concentrate on not blinkin
see how long I can go til my eyes need to shut.
Anarcha was one of eleven slaves who were purchased by "father" of modern gynecology Dr Marion Sims for his research. Essentially torturing these women, Sims did his research (including surgeries) without offering pain relief or sedation. Our lauded study and history of medicine has for so long been polished of its shameful bits, but in this slender, intense volume of poetry, a name and voice is given to the very real, the very human sacrifice to our knowledge.
It's impossible to call this an "enjoyable" read, but it is gutting, gripping, and necessary. Giving voice to the ignored, Christina makes it imperative we know and understand the humans behind any learning we've gained. This volume can be read with now knowledge of Anarcha or Dr Sims; Christina's poems make clear what is occurring, and we can't pretend otherwise. We're given the opportunity to bear witness, to hold Anarcha with a tenderness and love she wasn't offered.
What makes this volume so important and timely is that horrifically, there is still such intense bias in the medical community toward people of color, especially those who are Black/of African descent. Numerous studies show that even now, black patients are not given the same pain management as white patients and that black pregnant women receive shockingly subpar medical treatment compared to white women. The seeds of these beliefs were planted with the forefathers of medicine and is part of a long history of of unethical treatment (like the Tuskegee syphilis experiment and as documented in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks).
I love the cover design, too, with the soft figure and profile and Anarcha's name fuzzy -- but seeming to grow more firm, more clear. History might want to ignore her, but she will have her say.… (mais)
Powerful poetry about and for women. Inspires one to work towards equality, dignity, and freedom for women.
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Estatísticas
- Obras
- 4
- Also by
- 4
- Membros
- 55
- Popularidade
- #295,340
- Avaliação
- 4.2
- Resenhas
- 4
- ISBNs
- 7
