Running to Stand Still

Histories, stories, lyrics, aspirations, dreams, pressures, and images are spun into a musical tale through a site of convergence: the Black female body. Swarmed by external gazes and narratives, the inhabitant of this body uses her power to turn down this cacophony of noise and compose a symphonic space for herself. By breaching boundaries of racism, sexism, sizeism, colorism, and colonialism, these poems investigate the memories and realities of existing as Black in America. Building from poetic, journalistic, and musical histories, poet and essayist Kimberly Reyes constructs a complex and fantastic narrative in which she negotiates a path to claim her own power.

These poems teem with life, a life rich with many selves and many histories that populate in the voice of Reyes's poetic narrator. They sway between negotiations of hypervisibility and erasure, the inevitable and the chosen, and the perceived and the constructed. Reyes's poems offer sharp observations and lyrical movement to guide us in a ballad of reconciliation and becoming.


Author: Kimberly Reyes
Publisher: Omnidawn
Published: 10/15/2019
Pages: 96
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.40d
ISBN13: 9781632430724
ISBN10: 163243072X
BISAC Categories:
- Poetry | American | African American & Black
- Poetry | Women Authors
- Poetry | Subjects & Themes | General

About the Author
Kimberly Reyes is a poet and essayist who lives in San Francisco, California. She is the author of Life During Wartime, winner of the Michael Rubin Prose Book Award and Warning Coloration.