DaMaris Hill

Photo courtesy of damarishill.com

Damaris Hill

“In the 1862nd year of our Lord, / there were 241 lynched / torn from wives’ arms and wedding chambers … All of this / done under the armor of white / supremacy,” poet DaMaris B. Hill writes in a sprawling, multipart experimental work that blurs the lines between verse, history lesson, and statistical analysis. Such bold synthesis defines A Bound Woman is a Dangerous Thing. Short bios and selected photos accompany poems about the literal, figurative, and cultural incarceration African-American women have faced for centuries. Of Sandra Bland, Hill writes, “It could have been me, a black woman / the color of Oklahoma clay; a policeman pretending to be / some cowboy.” Of writer and activist Sonia Sanchez, Hill says, “She / shows the [military] recruiter that ‘freedom / can’t be paid for with my grandchildren’s / lives.’” Hill’s work is rife with under-told brutality and tragedy, but also rich with the humanity of the women she honors. —Corbie Hill