the she said dialogues: flesh memory

“I’m constantly surprised by Akilah Oliver’s poems, pieces. I’m watching her meanings slosh. Rhythms settle and rule. Quirky things come in: general hospital, junk antiques, 1948 . . . everything bobbing. It’s wonderous finally, eventually, always what language can be in the thrall of a compassionate and intricate sprit. The world changes around me and I know something new. With terrific ease her poems make the point that language is erotic. In a surgent moment of reading and writing, a voice bursts out of the foam, this tough new Aphrodite. She’s commanding and dangerous. Awake and alive.”

“From multiple and shifting subject positions, Akilah Oliver surveys the contested terrain of identity and sexuality with a concise, intellectually engaged poetic language. As her sacred duty, she bares the naked truth of the double-edged poet’s word. This bolder sister outsider brings the sound of her distinct dream to the difficult music of our long dissonant song.”