the black maria
“[Girmay’s] every loss—she calls them estrangements—is a yearning for connection across time and place; her every fragment is a bulwark against ruin.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
Taking its name from the moon’s dark plains, misidentified as seas by early astronomers, the black maria investigates African diasporic histories, the consequences of racism within American culture, and the question of human identity. Central to this project is a desire to recognize the lives of Eritrean refugees who have been made invisible by years of immigration crisis, refugee status, exile, and resulting statelessness. The recipient of a 2015 Whiting Award for Poetry, Girmay’s newest collection elegizes and celebrates life, while wrestling with the notion of seeing beyond: seeing violence, seeing grace, and seeing each other better.
About the Author
Aracelis Girmay is a poet who makes works across genres. She is the author of the poetry collections the black maria (BOA, 2016), Kingdom Animalia (BOA, 2011), and Teeth (Curbstone, 2007). For this work she was a finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Her books have also been named finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, and the Connecticut Book Award. She has received fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, Civitella Ranieri, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Cave Canem Foundation, among others. Girmay is the author of the forthcoming chapbook, and was a flower, made in collaboration with book artist Valentina Améstica. Other recent work includes a picture book collaboration with her sister entitled What Do You Know? and the forthcoming picture book collaboration with artist Diana Ejaita entitled Kamau and Zuzu Find A Way, both with Enchanted Lion Books. Recent works (poetry and prose) have been published or are forthcoming in Astra, The Paris Review online, Periphery Journal, Jewish Currents, The New York Times Magazine, and e-flux.
Girmay is the editor of How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton (BOA, 2020) and So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth (Haymarket Books, 2023). She is on the editorial board of the African Poetry Book Fund and is the editor-at-large of the Blessing the Boats Selections (BOA Editions).