Description

In this brave and devastatingly beautiful anthology, the illustrious poet and editor Aracelis Girmay gathers complex and intimate pieces that illuminate the nuance of personal and collective histories, analyses, practices, and choices surrounding pregnancy.

Featuring the brilliant voices of writers of color such as Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, Patricia Smith, Elizabeth Alexander, and more, this book is a lighthouse—a tool and companion—for those navigating pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage, birth, loss, grief, and love. So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth is an anthology of nonfiction that transcends form, with pieces ranging from essays to poems to interviews, revealing a broad entanglement of themes from a range of perspectives including those of Black, Indigenous, Asian, and Latinx writers. At a time when people are becoming more and more limited in their choices surrounding reproductive rights, this record of varied and intricate relationships to pregnancy is increasingly urgent and indispensable.

ARACELIS GIRMAY is a poet and editor from Santa Ana, California. Her books include the black maria, Teeth, Kingdom Animalia, the collage-based picture book changing, changing, and How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton. A recipient of numerous grants, awards, and fellowships in support of her work from the Whiting Foundation, the NEA, the Cave Canem Foundation, and others, she is currently the editor at large of the Blessing the Boats Selections within BOA’s American Poets Continuum Series.

978-1-64259-839-1 • 320 pages