We will rest! The art of escape

Hersey (Rest Is Resistance, 2022) is an activist and performance artist known for founding the Nap Ministry. She encourages people to resist the incessant calls to demonstrate constant productivity in the West, particularly in North America. Her new book continues to explore the ideas, this time in a mixed visual and text format. Short sections prompt the reader to build boundaries and to ask why feelings of guilt and shame follow periods of rest. The poems in this volume also powerfully connect the experiences of millions of Black Americans to transatlantic slavery as the point of origin for the ongoing fixation on productivity. Hersey urges readers to learn how to become an escape artist, not in the literal sense à la Houdini but rather as someone who finds ways to prioritize self-care and disrupt the expectations of ceaseless output. Featuring impactful illustrations throughout and with strong spiritual messages, We Will Rest is a moving text that will make a meaningful gift for everyone from those about to start college to those near retirement.

A multidisciplinary African American artist/theologian muses on the concept of rest as necessity and strategy. Hersey opens with a provocative question: "How do you find rest in a capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal, ableist system?" In this part art object, part "escape artist" manifesto, Hersey offers a 10-step guide to finding rest from the oppressiveness of "grind culture." Finding inspiration in historical figures like Harriet Tubman, who led other enslaved people to freedom, Hersey counsels readers to first become a "trickster" dedicated to ignoring everything that "stands in the way of…liberation." Creating community is also key to finding--and perpetuating--safe spaces that allow for deliverance. At the same time, she warns that freedom requires the artfulness of improvisation because no single path will suit all who desire rest. Seekers must consciously slow down and listen to their bodies and their own inner wisdom while steering clear of the material forms of self-care that "toxic capitalism" tries to force on those caught in its gears. Their inner trickster must also be open to constant self-reinvention, an act that liberates in how it catches the grind culture off guard. Finding comfort in poetry--and especially the politically inflected poetry of Nikki Giovanni and Langston Hughes--also assists with a seeker's mission to continue dreaming in a system that exhausts the body and numbs the mind and spirit. As it calls out the racist, sexist brutality of hypercapitalism, this spiritual book offers respite to the weary through spare, duotone illustrations, playful word-based page layouts, and refreshingly uncluttered pages that sum up her wisdom in everything from epigrams and single-paragraph reflections to poems and brief narratives. Warm, wise, and humane. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.