Catacombs

by Safiya Sinclair

Poetry. African & African American Studies. This perfect-bound chapbook showcases Safiya Sinclair's immense talents across a wide variety of genres, including poetry, memoir, and literary essay. Eddie Baugh writes, "Her mythopoeic imagination thrives on startling metaphors and combinations of images. Eschewing the naturalistic and consolatory, the poetry is alive in disturbing implosions of consciousness, drawn to cataclysm and apocalypse, whether in personal or communal histories."

Genres: Poetry

51 pages, Paperback

Published November 1, 2011

About the author

Safiya Sinclair was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and a Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, the Kenyon Review, Boston Review, Gulf Coast, the Gettysburg Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Sinclair received her MFA in poetry from the University of Virginia and is a Dornsife Doctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California.

Reviews

[Greg Bem · Rating 5 out of 5]

I visited Safiya Sinclair's first book after reading her latest Cannibal and being blown away. This one is striking as well, and feels even more personal and radically humbling of roots and local histories. This is a tough book to read and feel confident with, so I look forward to returning to it! I also can't wait for Sinclair's next book. I feel like her writing is very similar to my own and the attraction to all-things-water, through peace and violence alike, is intensely inspiring.

[Sage Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

so beautiful and mythic. amazing use of language and storytelling