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They Are All Me
They Are All Me, Dominique Christina's second full length collection of poetry and third book, collapses that separation between compassion and rage. Here is a book of a linguistic brilliance and of praise for the entourage of African-American heroes and martyrs who are part of all our souls’ memories.
- GenresPoetry
132 pages, Paperback
First published July 29, 2015
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About the author
Dominique Christina
17 books48 followers is an award-winning poet, author, educator, and activist. She holds five national poetry slam titles in four years, including the 2014 & 2012 Women of the World Slam Champion and 2011 National Poetry Slam Champion. Her work is greatly influenced by her family's legacy in the Civil Rights Movement and by the idea that worlds make worlds. Her poetry collections: The Bones, The Breaking, The Balm: A Colored Girl's Hymnal, published by Penmanship Books, and They Are All Me, published by Swimming With Elephants Publishing are available now. Her third book, This Is Woman's Work, is set for publication by Sounds True Publishing in October 2015.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 12, 2017
Dominique Christina's work is necessary, prescient, powerful, unforgettable, heart, lungs, pancreas, ovaries, and every bit of skin, vein, muscle inside that maps the outside world within her poetry brings the bodies to us; in us; best title ever: 'The Are All Me', because that's what each of the beings in these poems is and she relays with mastery and breathtaking language: they are all of me!
Some quotes:
"No Vowels, and No Consonants Either"
Ronnie did three years in
solitary confinement
but not for the murders,
just the drugs and the
way he sold 'em.
Woke up one morning
and couldn't remember his
daughter's name.
Other things.
Simple words like Love,
like Goodbye.
Language is slippery
when you don't use it,
when nobody speaks to you,
when no letters come.
Language is a graveyard
of carrier pigeons.
The rotting meat of
unsaid things
that made him curse God
harder than he did
when they killed his
uncle in front of him
when we were nine years old.
So he kept his head
in the lion's mouth,
gave his bones back to the dark
like so many boys he
pushed off the planet
trying to prove that the cosmic fight
of manhood is a dark altar
held up by the bones of
whoever's weakest.
It' funny:
when I knew him he held doors open and
loved his mama though she
chain-smoked Marlboros and
never paid the light bill,
kept his shoes clean and
his shirts tucked in.
The boy who became a man,
the one who learned the death-rattle
religion of solitary cells,
the bruised clergy of convicted men,
the one who forgot the sound of his voice,
who learned to hurt soundlessly,
damned to scratch for consonants
and vowels
roaring his spite in total silence–
The widest wound I know."
I hope this blasts through you like it did me! Like every poem in this collection does! And all of her work! Christina is a phenomenon! I hope you'll open up through her words and want more, more, more! Unparalleled! LOVE LOVE LOVE!
Some quotes:
"No Vowels, and No Consonants Either"
Ronnie did three years in
solitary confinement
but not for the murders,
just the drugs and the
way he sold 'em.
Woke up one morning
and couldn't remember his
daughter's name.
Other things.
Simple words like Love,
like Goodbye.
Language is slippery
when you don't use it,
when nobody speaks to you,
when no letters come.
Language is a graveyard
of carrier pigeons.
The rotting meat of
unsaid things
that made him curse God
harder than he did
when they killed his
uncle in front of him
when we were nine years old.
So he kept his head
in the lion's mouth,
gave his bones back to the dark
like so many boys he
pushed off the planet
trying to prove that the cosmic fight
of manhood is a dark altar
held up by the bones of
whoever's weakest.
It' funny:
when I knew him he held doors open and
loved his mama though she
chain-smoked Marlboros and
never paid the light bill,
kept his shoes clean and
his shirts tucked in.
The boy who became a man,
the one who learned the death-rattle
religion of solitary cells,
the bruised clergy of convicted men,
the one who forgot the sound of his voice,
who learned to hurt soundlessly,
damned to scratch for consonants
and vowels
roaring his spite in total silence–
The widest wound I know."
I hope this blasts through you like it did me! Like every poem in this collection does! And all of her work! Christina is a phenomenon! I hope you'll open up through her words and want more, more, more! Unparalleled! LOVE LOVE LOVE!
January 10, 2018
This is an excellent volume of poetry that speaks to our time. The language is real and elegant, there are exciting turns of phrase and brutal metaphors. It's a collection with the strongest poems in the middle and end so keep reading even if it doesn't move you right away.
June 16, 2020
This book is a poetic rendition of storytelling that reaches into our history and ties us to the current state of voices that echo the cry of people that are not being heard (until recently). Her poems bring attention to the issues that matter.
November 17, 2015
Unique style and perspective. I love "the period poem" best. so universal.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews