These extraordinary poems and the accompanying visual presences will haunt their way into the reader's heart and linger until compassion resides there, and knowledge, and healing. This is poetry as meditation, meditation as prayer, prayer as an act of resistance. Ms. Alston-Nero begins with the three million year-old bones of Dinkanesh, discovered in Ethiopia in 1974; enters into the ancestral world of the African Burial Ground in Manhattan; unearths ancestors in the songs of Nina Simone; and, finally, allows a poetic exchange between the enslaved ancestors and the world of our today. "Kiss Me." creates an imperative to understand the present by deeply listening and bearing witness to the past. These are poems of reclamation that stand upright with ancient eyes proclaiming, "We survived the past, we will live to see eternity." "If our Black history and culture were garnished with the poetic imagery and metaphors that resonate in Stephanie Alston-Nero's poetry, we would all be better teachers and students. At the core of this remarkable book is an impressive use of language, a deft orchestration of voices, and let us hope that the shapes of the poems remain upon publication."
-Herb Boyd, author of "Baldwin's Harlem" "Stephanie Alston-Nero creates a textured homage, an evocative narrative to the ancestors, conferring dignity and elegance upon their spirits."
-Erika DeRuth, author of "Yoruba Girls in Crinoline Dresses" "These poems are dissonant, sharp and brilliant. No happy slave lives in these poems. They moan and chant up the ghosts of our collective past. Alston-Nero synthesizes image, historical fact and race memory to arrive at poems that offer a fresh and much needed retelling of American Slavery. She is unafraid to enter the burial ground, whipping post or hanging tree to rescue stories and the humanity of our slave ancestors. She casts an unflinching eye upon the lives of slaves and their contemporary descendents. It is a necessary read for generations to come."
-Jacqueline Johnson, author of "A Gathering of Mother Tongues"