The Hand Has Twenty-Seven Bones—: These Hands If Not Gods

by Natalie Díaz

Belladonna* chaplets are short, raw works (often works-in-progress) by authors who appear in our reading series. These ephemeral, immediate works give insight into a writer’s process and timely concerns.

Genres: Poetry

17 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Natalie Díaz was born and raised in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California, on the banks of the Colorado River. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Her first poetry collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2012. Her second poetry collection, Postcolonial Love Poems is published by Graywolf Press in 2020. She is 2018 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, a Lannan Literary Fellow and a Native Arts Council Foundation Artist Fellow. She was awarded a Bread Loaf Fellowship, the Holmes National Poetry Prize, a Hodder Fellowship, and a PEN/Civitella Ranieri Foundation Residency, as well as being awarded a US Artists Ford Fellowship. Díaz teaches at the Arizona State University Creative Writing MFA program.

Reviews

[sheng · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is one of the best pieces of poetry i've ever read.... the allegories to mythology, natural science, art, and etymology are so elegantly pieced together.... i wish i had read this earlier

[sar! · Rating 5 out of 5]

OH MY GOD!? this was brilliant, wow. the stream of consciousness style of writing, the science, the gayness of it all….just fantastic if you have 30 minutes today, read this!!

[Grace Richards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Natalie Diaz is great and I want to read everything she has ever written. This was really beautiful (and very short!) - you can read it here, but make sure to take note of page numbers as you may have to skip around a bit to get the poems in order!

[Anastasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

'When my hand opens beneath the surface of the river, who can say thirst doesn’t live in the bowl of my palm...'

This was absolutely beautiful, a quick read and has some spectacular references to mythology, science and the like. It's quite easy to digest which is my favourite part of the chaplets.

[Anastasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good bridge between Díaz's debut (When My Brother Was an Aztec) and Postcolonial Love Poem, but if you haven't read any of Díaz's poetry, this is a good place to start. You can find this chaplet here for free.

Natalie Díaz is a poet I have my eye on. I cannot wait to read her future works.

[mehnaaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

i swear to god there is no other poetry like this!

"Haven’t they moved like rivers—
like Glory, like light—
over the seven days of your body?

And wasn’t that good?
Them at your hips—

isn’t this what God felt when he pressed together
the first Beloved: Everything.
Fever. Vapor. Atman. Pulsus. Finally,
a sin worth hurting for. Finally, a sweet, a
You are mine.

.......

Haven’t they riveted your wrists, haven’t they
had you at your knees?

And when these hands touched your throat,
showed you how to take the apple and the rib,
how to slip a thumb into your mouth and taste it all,
didn’t you sing out their ninety-nine names—"

read the poem here: http://www.belladonnaseries.org/wp-co...

[literaryelise · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Her pen becomes her hand—: / the way I become beneath her hand.”

[bunnilune · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO beautiful
really short but you could spend hours reading it

[Mary Popoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Who holds the reins of desires if not my hands”

“…a fin of desire”

“Those lovers are mostly gone. My hands remain—: like altars”

[Iz Di · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where can i buy this book? I cannot find it anywhere.

[bibliophagy · Rating 4 out of 5]

so many references i dont know and could go back to look up. even not knowing them, this is a beautiful piece. my first introduction to natalie díaz's work. i'll be reading more.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I make my faith in my hands”

[fl0r d'estufa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I had enjoyed it more.

"What are the hands, but gods
pulsing with red sugar?"

"Physics says we can never truly touch anything—the electrons in our
hands repel the electrons in the object we think we are touching.
Touch—: the brain’s interpretation of the repulsion taking place between
our body’s electrons and the object’s electromagnetic field.

The feeling of touch is just our luck."