Aracelis Girmay is the winner of a 2015 Whiting Award for Poetry. She is the author of three poetry collections: the black maria (BOA Editions, 2016); Kingdom Animalia (BOA Editions, 2011), which won the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Teeth (Curbstone, 2007). 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.

CONTENTS

elelegy 5

prayer & letter to the dead 7
to the sea (any) 15
¿& when it happens¿ 16
¿you are going now¿ 17
¿hands for pleasure, hands for mending¿ 18
to 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¿ 23
to the sea near lampedusa 24
luam to the dead 25
luam/ asa luam 26
luam, 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¿ 30
luam in the sea, to the survivors 31
luam remembers massawa 32
luam to her sibling 33
luam cleaning house 34
the luams speak of god 35
luam, new york 36
luam, asmera 37
luam, umbertide, asmera, new york 38
¿Look! In another poem you are¿ 40
luam mending clothes 41
luam, new york 42
luam, monterchi, italy 43
to the sea 44
¿Why not, in addition, tell¿ 45
¿strange earth, strange¿ 46
to the sea 47
to the sea 48
¿praise the water, now¿ 49
[collective messages] 50
¿I love the azucena so bring them to yoü 51
the luams 52
on poetry & history 53

the black maria 54

The Black Maria 55
Third Estrangement, With an Ending Loosely After Jonathan Ferrell 56
The Woodlice, Fourth Estrangement 57
The Figeaters, Fifth Estrangement 58
First Estrangement 59
Moon for Aisha 60
Cooley High, Fifth Estrangement 62
The Beauty of the World, Tenth Estrangement 64
Second Estrangement 65
Third Estrangement 66
Fourth Estrangement, With a Petition for the Reunion of Jonathan & George Jackson 67