a body is not a sky, by Anna Gayle

Poetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

a body is not a sky is a collection about the transition from girlhood to womanhood. These poems detail the physically and emotionally painful process of feminine discovery. How does a person become and remain an object? What do you say when there is no space for “no”? How can you know yourself when you are afraid of your own memory?

Through vivid and unflinching imagery, these poems weave together stories that are too often silenced. Acting as a record of the “signs of life / women recognize”, a body is not a sky unapologetically asks its readers to bear witness while challenging the limited language we have been given to understand sexual violation and violence.

Anna Gayle is a poet, educator, and artist whose work is interested in black womanhood, collective femininity, and chronic illness. Her poems have been published, or are forthcoming, in Gulf Coast, Cider Press Review, CALYX, Rogue Agent, The Mantle, and Thimble Lit Magazine. She is a graduate of Oregon State University’s MFA program and her poems have been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and a Pushcart Prize.