A
collection of poetry that moves from family history and the
heartbreaks of navigating a predominantly white high school into
adulthood, exploring the ways the speaker’s experiences echo those
of an expansive and intricate history of Black girls and women.
In
this beautiful debut from an exciting new poet, Alexa Patrick’s
Remedies for
Disappearing
memorializes Blackness in its quiet and unexpected forms, bringing
the peripheral into focus. These poems muddy Black life and death,
observe lineage and love stories, and question what “disappearing”
teaches about Blackness and bodies.
Remedies
for Disappearing
is gritty, sharp, and formally inventive, demonstrating Patrick’s
imaginative curiosity, lyrical restraint, and confidence in her
handling of language. Moments of aphoristic confession are balanced
with imagistic precision as the speaker recounts the ways her
aunties, sisters, and even herself have disappeared in order to
survive.
Patrick’s
poetry is haunting and hopeful, striving to provide readers with the
tools and context to acknowledge, define, and honor the complexity of
Black girl/womanhood. Remedies
for Disappearing
connects Black girls and women to each other and to their own
histories, and insists that they be fully and wholly seen.
“In
Alexa Patrick’s stunning Remedies for Disappearing,
coming of age, Black girlhood, and family history are rendered with
crackling electricity and specificity. These poems sister me
fiercely, will sister me forever.”
—Safia
Elhillo, author of Girls
That Never Die