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A Map of My Want
From the critically acclaimed author of HoodWitch, Faylita Hicks’s second collection explores the question “where do our desires take us?”
An offspring of Audre Lorde’s seminal essay “Uses of the Erotic,” Hicks’s A Map of My Want follows a nonbinary femme as they explore where their polyamory and sexual freedom can take them after their escape from a religious cult. In this volume you will find beaches, threesomes, quantum mechanics, nature hikes, floods, and the long walk home from jail. The book is an intimate erotic spell through which Hicks conjures joy as they develop an alternate theory on how to attain happiness.
An offspring of Audre Lorde’s seminal essay “Uses of the Erotic,” Hicks’s A Map of My Want follows a nonbinary femme as they explore where their polyamory and sexual freedom can take them after their escape from a religious cult. In this volume you will find beaches, threesomes, quantum mechanics, nature hikes, floods, and the long walk home from jail. The book is an intimate erotic spell through which Hicks conjures joy as they develop an alternate theory on how to attain happiness.
100 pages, Paperback
Published July 9, 2024
8 people are currently reading
172 people want to read
About the author
Faylita Hicks
4 books24 followersFaylita Hicks (pronouns: she/her/they) is a queer black writer, mobile photographer, and performance artist.
The author of HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019), her poetry and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming in Slate, Huffington Post, Texas Observer, POETRY magazine, Color Bloq, The Rumpus, Foundry, Prairie Schooner, Kweli Journal, The Cincinnati Review, Tahoma Literary Review,The Austin American-Statesman, Glass Poetry Press, Lunch Ticket, Matador Review, and others.
She is the managing editor of Borderlands:Texas Poetry Review, an organizer with social justice group Mano Amiga, a 2019 Lambda Literary Writing Retreat Fellow for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, and a 2019 Jack Jones Literary Arts “Culture, Too” Gender/Sexuality Fellow. She served as a mentor for 2019 L.A. Review of Books Publishing Workshop and was a finalist for Palette Poetry’s 2019 Spotlight Award, the 2018 PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship, and the 2018 Cosmonauts Avenue Annual Poetry Prize. She received Catapult's Inaugural 2019 Black History Month Workshop Scholarship, participated in the 2018 Open Mouth Readings Retreat, and the 2018 Speakeasy Nonfiction Workshop. She was recognized and presented as a State Poet at the 2014 Austin International Poetry Festival. In June 2019, she released ONYX, her spoken word companion EP for her debut poetry collection.
The Founder/Creative Director of Arrondi Creative Productions, Hicks is an artist on the roster for hip-hop collective Grid Squid Entertainment. In 2017, she was awarded the San Marcos Arts Commission Grant for her monthly event series, SMTX Ripple Market, which provided performance and exhibit opportunities to women, POC, and those identified as LGBTQ-IA over the course of 36+ local and regional events.
The 2009 Grand Slam Champion of the Austin Poetry Slam, she was a member of the 2008 Neo Soul Poetry Slam Team and won several individual regional competitions. Her visual art has been exhibited in the Texas State University Gallery of the Common Experience, Insomnia Gallery in Houston, Dahlia’s Gallery in San Marcos, Patio Dolcetto in San Marcos, and featured in Five:2:One print magazine.
She received her MFA in creative writing from Sierra Nevada College’s low-residency program and lives in San Marcos, Texas. She is currently at work on a memoir.
The author of HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019), her poetry and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming in Slate, Huffington Post, Texas Observer, POETRY magazine, Color Bloq, The Rumpus, Foundry, Prairie Schooner, Kweli Journal, The Cincinnati Review, Tahoma Literary Review,The Austin American-Statesman, Glass Poetry Press, Lunch Ticket, Matador Review, and others.
She is the managing editor of Borderlands:Texas Poetry Review, an organizer with social justice group Mano Amiga, a 2019 Lambda Literary Writing Retreat Fellow for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, and a 2019 Jack Jones Literary Arts “Culture, Too” Gender/Sexuality Fellow. She served as a mentor for 2019 L.A. Review of Books Publishing Workshop and was a finalist for Palette Poetry’s 2019 Spotlight Award, the 2018 PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship, and the 2018 Cosmonauts Avenue Annual Poetry Prize. She received Catapult's Inaugural 2019 Black History Month Workshop Scholarship, participated in the 2018 Open Mouth Readings Retreat, and the 2018 Speakeasy Nonfiction Workshop. She was recognized and presented as a State Poet at the 2014 Austin International Poetry Festival. In June 2019, she released ONYX, her spoken word companion EP for her debut poetry collection.
The Founder/Creative Director of Arrondi Creative Productions, Hicks is an artist on the roster for hip-hop collective Grid Squid Entertainment. In 2017, she was awarded the San Marcos Arts Commission Grant for her monthly event series, SMTX Ripple Market, which provided performance and exhibit opportunities to women, POC, and those identified as LGBTQ-IA over the course of 36+ local and regional events.
The 2009 Grand Slam Champion of the Austin Poetry Slam, she was a member of the 2008 Neo Soul Poetry Slam Team and won several individual regional competitions. Her visual art has been exhibited in the Texas State University Gallery of the Common Experience, Insomnia Gallery in Houston, Dahlia’s Gallery in San Marcos, Patio Dolcetto in San Marcos, and featured in Five:2:One print magazine.
She received her MFA in creative writing from Sierra Nevada College’s low-residency program and lives in San Marcos, Texas. She is currently at work on a memoir.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
November 6, 2024
Thank you to Haymarket Books for my copy! 4.5 stars rounded up for GR :)
June 6, 2024
ARC given by Edelweiss+ for Honest Review
A rich collection of poetry and prose taking inspiration from Audre Lorde. Hicks is a black nonbinary femme and writes from the heart about love, human rights, and sexual positivity. The poems are lively and biting.
I am not a fan of the way Hicks uses "womxn/mxn" as I find it unnecessary to create a new term for trans and gender nonconforming individuals. Using ‘womxn’ to refer to trans women implies they aren’t actually women in my experience. That being said Hicks is expressing their wants and needs as a nonbinary person just the same way I am. This is a personal preference of mine.
My favorite poems are: "#LOVEMACHINE", "Foreign Bodies", and "Crash Molasses."
A rich collection of poetry and prose taking inspiration from Audre Lorde. Hicks is a black nonbinary femme and writes from the heart about love, human rights, and sexual positivity. The poems are lively and biting.
I am not a fan of the way Hicks uses "womxn/mxn" as I find it unnecessary to create a new term for trans and gender nonconforming individuals. Using ‘womxn’ to refer to trans women implies they aren’t actually women in my experience. That being said Hicks is expressing their wants and needs as a nonbinary person just the same way I am. This is a personal preference of mine.
My favorite poems are: "#LOVEMACHINE", "Foreign Bodies", and "Crash Molasses."
July 26, 2024
Publishing date: 09.07.2024
Thank you to Netgalley and Haymarket Books for the ARC. My opinions are my own.
The book as a meal: A buffet where I can eat any meal I want
The book left me: Questioning my gender once again
Negatives:
Formatting was a little hard to read and process
Positives:
Several connective themes (erotism, freedom, gender fluidity)
Features:
A nonbinary person exploring their gender, erotic and sexual themes, navigating gender in society and family situations
Why did I choose this one?
Poems for days for a poem loving woman. Also, nonbinary rep. Love to see it
Pick-up-able? Put-down-able?
In between. The formatting didn't allow me to read for a prolonged time, but the poems made me want to continue. I prioritized preventing a headache, and read bit by bit instead of swallowing it whole. I think this would fit best as a physical book.
What was the vibe and mood?
A little uncertainty, a lot of curiosity, wanting to fit in, finding out you can make your own mold, exploring myself a little, and most important: feeling free.
Final ranking and star rating?
3 stars, C tier. Although I appreciated the themes going on and the stunning writing style, I could not connect with the work. I recognized some parts of the work in myself, but not enough to truly appreciate it. I think I could come back to it later after reading some more biographies to understand the work and the author. This book would fit those seeking to understand themselves and others in the LGBTQ+ community. I have some in my circle that would adore and find some use for this work.
Favorite poems:
Foreign bodies
Gawd forgive me
The skybridge in their divorce
Thank you to Netgalley and Haymarket Books for the ARC. My opinions are my own.
The book as a meal: A buffet where I can eat any meal I want
The book left me: Questioning my gender once again
Negatives:
Formatting was a little hard to read and process
Positives:
Several connective themes (erotism, freedom, gender fluidity)
Features:
A nonbinary person exploring their gender, erotic and sexual themes, navigating gender in society and family situations
Why did I choose this one?
Poems for days for a poem loving woman. Also, nonbinary rep. Love to see it
Pick-up-able? Put-down-able?
In between. The formatting didn't allow me to read for a prolonged time, but the poems made me want to continue. I prioritized preventing a headache, and read bit by bit instead of swallowing it whole. I think this would fit best as a physical book.
What was the vibe and mood?
A little uncertainty, a lot of curiosity, wanting to fit in, finding out you can make your own mold, exploring myself a little, and most important: feeling free.
Final ranking and star rating?
3 stars, C tier. Although I appreciated the themes going on and the stunning writing style, I could not connect with the work. I recognized some parts of the work in myself, but not enough to truly appreciate it. I think I could come back to it later after reading some more biographies to understand the work and the author. This book would fit those seeking to understand themselves and others in the LGBTQ+ community. I have some in my circle that would adore and find some use for this work.
Favorite poems:
Foreign bodies
Gawd forgive me
The skybridge in their divorce
August 13, 2024
I'm adamant that one should read a poetry collection a minimum of two times: the first to experience the poetry, the second to understand it. Faylita Hicks' A Map of My Want is my latest piece of evidence as to why. Having just finished my first read through, I can say I loved the collection's musicality, imagery, and flow, but I can't say I "get" what Hicks is trying to say. Hicks' perspective as a black nonbinary femme who has been incarcerated is wildly outside my realm of experience, which added a significant (though not unwelcome) barrier between myself and the poems' meaning. The highly-wrought nature of the poetry added another barrier, making the collection as a whole difficult to penetrate. This is not a criticism, however, and is in fact praise--each poem is so rich and layered that it begs to be read slowly, one line at a time, and preferably with a pen and notebook handy; unlike plenty of contemporary poetry, a reader can't simply inhale it in one sitting and move on (and expect to glean anything from it), though the language is so intoxicating that doing so is tempting.
A Map of My Want is a challenging collection, both in style and content, but one worthy of significant time and attention. I look forward to returning to the poems in the near future for a much-desired second reading.
Thank you very much to NetGalley and Haymarket Books for the advanced review copy!
A Map of My Want is a challenging collection, both in style and content, but one worthy of significant time and attention. I look forward to returning to the poems in the near future for a much-desired second reading.
Thank you very much to NetGalley and Haymarket Books for the advanced review copy!
June 21, 2024
A map of my want - Faylita Hicks
“Who I am now - a kind of boi travelling south//southwest: as far as the stars will take me”
4.5☆|5
Not reading this collection of poems in one sitting was hard. A part of me wanted to savour them, read them slowly and then there was another part that wanted to devour each word as soon as possible, to drown in Faylita Hicks' verses and poems. Somehow, both of those parts won as I read this in about 3 days, trying to revel in every word.
This book screams freedom. It screams freedom, it screams liberation, it's a really specific and particular mix of freedom and guilt, as much as the pleasure of erotism. I might go read some of the poems again later, in the next few days, to feel all those feelings once again. The poetess' style was magnificent and every minute spent in those poems was a delight.
If I had to choose favourites, I would say that my favourite poems were probably "On Becoming a Bride for the Binary" as well as "The Skybridges in Their Divorce". However, there were multiple were I lost my breath by consuming the words and forgetting to breathe and others when I had tears in my eyes. That book was sublime, and as someone who never read poetry, I am glad that I decided to try it for once.
Thank you to Netgalley and Haymarket Books for the ARC of this book, it will be officially available on July 9th.
“Who I am now - a kind of boi travelling south//southwest: as far as the stars will take me”
4.5☆|5
Not reading this collection of poems in one sitting was hard. A part of me wanted to savour them, read them slowly and then there was another part that wanted to devour each word as soon as possible, to drown in Faylita Hicks' verses and poems. Somehow, both of those parts won as I read this in about 3 days, trying to revel in every word.
This book screams freedom. It screams freedom, it screams liberation, it's a really specific and particular mix of freedom and guilt, as much as the pleasure of erotism. I might go read some of the poems again later, in the next few days, to feel all those feelings once again. The poetess' style was magnificent and every minute spent in those poems was a delight.
If I had to choose favourites, I would say that my favourite poems were probably "On Becoming a Bride for the Binary" as well as "The Skybridges in Their Divorce". However, there were multiple were I lost my breath by consuming the words and forgetting to breathe and others when I had tears in my eyes. That book was sublime, and as someone who never read poetry, I am glad that I decided to try it for once.
Thank you to Netgalley and Haymarket Books for the ARC of this book, it will be officially available on July 9th.
October 4, 2024
Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for sending me a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.
"Truly I am in no hurry to appear."
"Someone should fall in love at my funeral; please, let it end with love."
This book was a poetic exploration of sexuality and gender. I loved the use of language to explore upbringing, race and gender. The writing was lyrical, poetic and the prose just seemed to run on and on in a wonderful way. The author did use some interesting metaphors for sexual relationships and there were some elements of the exploration that I struggled to reconcile, however this was so well written that those elements are barely noticeable. My favourite poem in the collection was Love Machine, but each and every poem was incredibly well written. This was also a rather easy book to read, I finished it in one sitting on my lunch break and enjoyed every minute spent reading it,
"Truly I am in no hurry to appear."
"Someone should fall in love at my funeral; please, let it end with love."
This book was a poetic exploration of sexuality and gender. I loved the use of language to explore upbringing, race and gender. The writing was lyrical, poetic and the prose just seemed to run on and on in a wonderful way. The author did use some interesting metaphors for sexual relationships and there were some elements of the exploration that I struggled to reconcile, however this was so well written that those elements are barely noticeable. My favourite poem in the collection was Love Machine, but each and every poem was incredibly well written. This was also a rather easy book to read, I finished it in one sitting on my lunch break and enjoyed every minute spent reading it,
July 1, 2024
“I bite back. I arc and sift, writes Faylita Hicks in the striking poetry collection A Map Of My Wants. Hicks writes about desire, the complexity of the body (and really feeling *through* the body), and self-discovery. My favorite poetry finds a balance between lyrical and direct verse, and this one does that. At the beginning, a dedication that struck my chest: “For every version of me that has known great love and loss—and still managed to reclaim my dignity.” This start sets the tone for Hicks’s powerful voice. Let this poetry collection remind you how to welcome yourself back into yourself. Get home.
July 9, 2024
Faylita Hicks has conjured such a stunning and beautiful story through her cutting “A Map of My Want”. This collection is brave and poignant with an impactful prose from a strong voice we should all be listening to. I have already recommended this to my local book club and look forward to more of this talented human!
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me an early free copy for an honest review.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me an early free copy for an honest review.
July 11, 2024
There is always a wonderful intensity to Faylita Hicks' work, one that borders on frustration and hope, acknowledging personal and global histories while never sliding backwards. Here, we see sexual fluidity dripping from every line and taut imagery that brings us into a world informed by the tension between past, present, and a future waiting to be conquered. Absolutely beautiful.
August 20, 2025
candy-soft / uncut sky / sick with onyx / stained lavender / under estimated static / language of lost time / sun slip / dimming delights / globed fists / still haunted / sweetened venom / neon / invasive / as your own / smudge / cacophony of glitter / silk sheets in 上海 / ice of your hips / echo of myself / the omen of an eclipse / kinetic / frothy bloom
September 8, 2025
"I yearn endlessly
for the dimming delights
of my curated innocence,
the borderless potential
of my reign over
my whole being,
unchecked. Let me
confess. I can come
home anytime I want.
I choose not to come
home alone."
Magnificent!!
I especially loved "Living Will and Testament"!!
for the dimming delights
of my curated innocence,
the borderless potential
of my reign over
my whole being,
unchecked. Let me
confess. I can come
home anytime I want.
I choose not to come
home alone."
Magnificent!!
I especially loved "Living Will and Testament"!!
June 30, 2024
Thank you to Haymarket Books via Netgalley for providing me with this ARC! A very visceral and compelling collection of poems. I read this collection very quickly but get the feeling that this is a collection I will return to and find something new each time.
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August 27, 2024Sealey Challenge 2024. 26/31
October 8, 2024
A bold and beautiful collection.
June 21, 2025
“To learn and be learned in the fight for our lives”
October 16, 2025
3.5 rounded up
August 8, 2024
Gorgeous collection that screams freedom. Hicks uses figurative language in this collection that forced me to slow down and really sit with the poems. This is a collection of loving oneself. I will visit this collection again. It is unforgettable and beautiful.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews