Finalist, 2022 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award
In the tender,
sensual, and bracing poems of a more perfect Union, Teri Ellen
Cross Davis reclaims the experience of living and mothering while
Black in contemporary America, centering Black women's pleasure by
wresting it away from the relentless commodification of the White
gaze. Cross Davis deploys stunning emotional range to uplift the
mundane, interrogate the status quo, and ultimately create her own
goddesses. Parenting, lust, household chores-all are fair game for
Cross Davis's gimlet eye. Whether honoring her grief for Prince's
passing while examining his role in midwifing her sexual awakening or
contemplating travel and the gamble of being Black across this wide
world, these poems tirelessly seek a path out of the labyrinth to
hope.
