Name: Blud
ISBN: 9781556595240

Rachel McKibbens

"Cultural brujeria, sacrilegious litanies, ritualized births, and letters from hearts and/or brains populate Rachel McKibben's world in blud"--

Blud

lianna

Jen Estrella

You have my permission
not to love me. I am
a cathedral of dead bolts
& I'd rather 
burn myself down
than change the locks.
Probably one of the best (powerful, visceral, unreal) poetry collections I've ever read. My favourite poems: 
1. Letter from my heart to my brain
2. Letter from my brain to my heart
3. ***
4. Outhouse
5. Glutton
6. The other children have agreed to forfeit their inheritance

weli 

"Throughout [BLUD], McKibbens breathes brilliant life into language, forging lush, rhythmic poems that are both fiercely urgent and tightly controlled, dark and flickering with fairy-tale-like magic. . . . Stunning, unflinching, fearless."―Booklist Starred Review "Chicana poet, activist, and witchy folk hero of the disenfranchised. . . . [McKibbens] creates these spaces of witness with her feral and boundary-pushing poems that speak unflinchingly of topics often swept under the rug: rape, domestic violence, body shaming, mental illness, prejudice."—Ploughshares "McKibbens, a pioneer in the art of performance poetry, presents her audience [with] selfless honesty."—The Rumpus "Rachel McKibbens . . . reminds us why poetry as testimony is so necessary." —Poetry Foundation McKibbens's blud is a collection of dark, rhythmic poems interested in the ways in which inherited things—bloodlines, mental illnesses, trauma—affect their inheritors. Reveling in form and sound, McKibbens's writing takes back control, undaunted by the idea of sinking its teeth into the ugliest moments of life, while still believing—and looking for—the good underneath all the bruising. From "untitled (lost love)": To my daughters I need to say: Go with the one who loves you biblically. The one whose love lifts its head to you despite its broken neck. Whose body bursts sixteen arms electric to carry you, gentle the way old grief is gentle. Love the love that is messy in all its too much . . . Rachel McKibbens is a poet, activist, playwright, essayist, and two-time New York Foundation for the Arts poetry fellow. She is the author of four books and founder of The Pink Door, an annual writing retreat open exclusively to women of color. She lives in Rochester, New York.

Blud

Reviews

Highlights