In Maroon Choreography fahima ife speculates on the long
(im)material, ecological, and aesthetic afterlives of black
fugitivity. In three long-form poems and a lyrical essay, they
examine black fugitivity as an ongoing phenomenon we know little
about beyond what history tells us. As both poet and scholar, ife
unsettles the history and idea of black fugitivity, troubling senses
of historic knowing while moving inside the continuing afterlives of
those people who disappeared themselves into rural spaces beyond the
reach of slavery. At the same time, they interrogate how writing
itself can be a fugitive practice and a means to find a way out of
ongoing containment, indebtedness, surveillance, and ecological ruin.
Offering a philosophical performance in black study, ife prompts us
to consider how we—in our study, in our mutual refusal, in our
belatedness, in our habitual assemblage—linger beside the unknown.
Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient