Mend : Poems / Kwoya Fagin Maples.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Maples, Kwoya Fagin, 1982- author.

Series:

University Press of Kentucky new poetry and prose series.

The University Press of Kentucky New Poetry and Prose Series.

Standardized Title:

Poems. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--21st century.

American poetry.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (97 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Lexington, Kentucky : The University Press of Kentucky, [2018]

Summary:

The inventor of the speculum, J. Marion Sims, is celebrated as the "father of modern gynecology, " and a memorial at his birthplace honors "his service to suffering women, empress and slave alike." These tributes whitewash the fact that Sims achieved his surgical breakthroughs by experimenting on eleven enslaved African American women. Lent to Sims by their owners, these women were forced to undergo operations without their consent. Today, the names of all but three of these women are lost. In Mend: Poems, Kwoya Fagin Maples gives voice to the enslaved women named in Sims's autobiography: Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy. In poems exploring imagined memories and experiences relayed from hospital beds, the speakers challenge Sims's lies, mourn their trampled dignity, name their suffering in spirit, and speak of their bodies as "bruised fruit." At the same time, they are more than his victims, and the poems celebrate their humanity, their feelings, their memories, and their selves. A finalist for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, this debut collection illuminates a complex and disturbing chapter of the African American experience.

Contents:

Front cover

Copyright

Contents

Preface

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780813176291

0813176298

9780813176284

081317628X

OCLC:

1052507652