NIGHT OF THE HAWK

Martin offers a collection of intimate and political poems in a voice both contemplative and strong.

The poems gathered here address themes of survival, chronic illness, shamanism, and feminism against the backdrop of daily life. Many poems contain references to the Yoruba religion, and the text includes a glossary explaining the terms, although the spiritual element is usually implied rather than explicated. In “My Experience as a Postmenopausal Woman,” the speaker laments the way older women are disregarded both in terms of femininity and feminism: “One in which there is no respect for the / elder authority of the endocrine system / and years of misogyny with no / conversation. Where we screamed into / the Grand Canyon that blew dust back / into our faces on the hot wind.” “Spirochete” condemns the systemic rejection of people living with chronic illness, shedding light on an injustice that’s simultaneously social and spiritual: “Oh Lyme Disease / You bitch // This morning you / Split my lip / Why? / Because you could…” “The Waiting Tree” explores the contrast of familiarity and nature with the utter chaos and heartbreak of the Chibok schoolgirls’ mass kidnapping in 2014: “In Nigeria / Time is specific / Dawn is 6am / Dusk is 6pm…” Some poems are spirited and play with form and rhyme without compromising the strength of voice; “Chattanooga” opens with “(Who do you do / And how do you fais do-do) // I am a poet / A New Yorker / An Òrìsà person…” In a prose piece (“Untitled Tilda Swinton Poem”), the speaker encounters her punk rock hero accompanied by a young man in the streets of Manhattan: “My mind hidden behind a sopping wet t-shirt and 7 days worth of cayenne and lemons. They weren’t even dirty. They could have been floating on the Mediterranean Sea. And then, they did…” The diversity of experience examined in these poems makes for a collection that is both full and human.

A whole life in one volume.