A bound woman is a dangerous thing The incarceration of African American women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland

Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* With a lyricism that sings, swings, and stings, poet and writer Hill reflects on black women who resisted violent racism and misogyny, ranging from the notable and notorious (Fannie Lou Hamer, Eartha Kitt, Ida B. Wells, Joanne Little) to lesser-known, no-less-heroic women. In this distinctive inquiry in verse, Hill refuses to make them mere victims. For example, her trickster prostitute, Black Bess, had a mermaid stroll / Ask for a dip and she'd take your toll / Baited her jelly on your fish pole. Laura Williams, dying in prison of tuberculosis, dreams feverishly of hounds: Their teeth loose in my veins / Awake to my own barking. Eartha Kitt, speaking her truth to Lady Bird Johnson about Vietnam, muses, Lady, your husband's army does its lynching in draft letters .... An afro is a kind of halo, softly clambering against the batons. Perhaps most poignant is Hill's visceral lament for Sandra Bland and the universal exploitation of black womanhood: It could have been me, a black woman the color of Oklahoma clay; a policeman pretending to be some cowboy ... told that he could squeeze gold from black women's wrists with iron cuffs. --Lesley Williams Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Through poetic memoir, biographical sketches, and archival black-and-white photographs, Hill's first full-length collection gives voice to the history of black women in the United States who have undergone incarceration and oppression. To be bound suggests to be trapped; however, Hill's poems illustrate how oppression can summon inner-strength, resistance, and revolution. While many of the freedom fighters spotlighted in the collection endured tragedy, Hill suggests it would be limiting to label these figures as tragic or doomed. Their narratives are not cautionary tales of defeat, but nuanced testaments of survival and ascension. In "Miz Lucille (an echo poem for Ms. Clifton)," Hill writes, "i stand up/ in the world that gift wrapped me for ruin/ i stand up/ and mark the script." Hill's deep admiration for poet and mentor Lucille Clifton serves as a touchstone, a way to rise above everyday struggles. In "Claudia Jones," Hill envisions the activist and writer's story as one of redemption: "How many/ ways did you write women? How / many ways did you right women?" For Hill, a bound woman overcomes oppression through her legacy. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A scholar and poet illuminates a legacy of African-American women through biographical sketches, archival photos, and verse.Long before Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, black women have been resisting the onslaughts of racism and sexual subjugation, as detailed in this unique volume. "Some of these movements began in the colonial era," writes Hill (Creative Writing, African-American and Africana Studies/Univ. of Kentucky; editor: The Fluid Boundaries of Suffrage and Jim Crow, 2016, etc.). "Writing poems about such women has forced me to question what it means for a Black woman to engage in resistance within this particular time and this specific place." On the scholarly side, the book offers a series of short biographical sketches of black women in American history. Following each is a poem (or more) of celebration; "these poems are love letters," writes the author. Through them, she traces her own literary influences as well as the heroic inspiration of black women who resisted, suffered, and even died in the face of oppression. One of the more recent is Sandra Bland, who died of what the official record noted was a suicide in a Texas jail cell after a minor traffic violation and altercation with the officer ticketing her. "Prior to her arrest," writes Hill, "Bland curated and documented her protests of police killings on various social media sites using the hashtag #SandySpeaks. Upon her death, her #SandySpeaks works went viral. They stand as an archive, a record of her intelligence and activism." Another woman was immortalized in the ballad "Joanne Little" by Sweet Honey in the Rock after stabbing an assailant with an icepick as he attempted to sexually assault her. She was acquitted of first-degree murder. More familiar names such as Eartha Kitt and Zora Neale Hurston receive similar tributes, as the collection builds to the author's own stream-of-consciousness monologue, her "autobiographical journey."A memorable book that is neither easy to classify nor dismiss. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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