“Convincing the Body is not where poetry is headed, it is where poetry IS,” says Patricia Smith, of Cheryl Boyce Taylor’s third book of poetry. Lush, edgy, sparse and elegant, these poems are not merely written, but lived. Divided into six movements, this work unflinchingly addresses injustice, war, sex, love, and hope. There is nothing random or predictable here. “Redemption shines like light through pinholes. This collection revels in the language of promise, the poems are ways of understanding our times and our lives,” says Bill Fogarty. Boyce Taylor stakes her pen in the vein and calls us out. “She don’t tek no mess,” says Cheryl Clarke.

BLACK
She be a black woman
born between a town's whisper
and a slither moon

she be Ibeji woman
born in hard crop guava season
between calabash and casava
she be the dust of Arima mountains...

                                         from Convincing the Body by Cheryl Boyce Taylor

 

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