Maroon Choreography

Black Outdoors: Innovations in the Poetics of Study

by fahima ife

In Maroon Choreography fahima ife speculates on the long (im)material, ecological, and aesthetic afterlives of black fugitivity. In three long-form poems and a lyrical essay, they examine black fugitivity as an ongoing phenomenon we know little about beyond what history tells us. As both poet and scholar, ife unsettles the history and idea of black fugitivity, troubling senses of historic knowing while moving inside the continuing afterlives of those people who disappeared themselves into rural spaces beyond the reach of slavery. At the same time, they interrogate how writing itself can be a fugitive practice and a means to find a way out of ongoing containment, indebtedness, surveillance, and ecological ruin. Offering a philosophical performance in black study, ife prompts us to consider how we—in our study, in our mutual refusal, in our belatedness, in our habitual assemblage—linger beside the unknown.

Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Essays, Criticism

144 pages, Paperback

First published July 6, 2021

About the author

fahima ife is Assistant Professor of English at Louisiana State University.

Reviews

[bookiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

A revolutionary visualization of a black narrative , a literal dance of chaos, words, full stops, parentheses, are transformed into breaths, bodies, that move endlessly. A book that you don't read but experience.

[Hollis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry developed in deep concert with theories of Blackness, ontology, sound, sexuality, breathing, more. In their prefatory note, ife asks “what undocumented black indigenous knowledges emerged in the seventeenth century on Turtle Island, and how do those knowledges persist in our contemporary air?” (x). It's an interesting quote, in part because by the end of the book I still wasn't quite sure how ife had intended to engage Indigenous philosophies. I'm rather comfortable with a lack of concept-specificity in poetry, especially poetry as theoretical/abstract as this volume, but there are two explanatory sections (the preface and a short prose essay) that could have provided a little more definition in that area.

For better and worse, ife is part of an elusive strain of Black theory (and critical theory at large) that prefers provocative murmurings (looking at you, Fred Moten, mentioned a couple times here) to more explicit claims and definitions. I don't really mean that as a straightforward dig though. Against a couple centuries of racial categorization put to violent ends that continue to the present, there's a clear political allure (and value) to speaking in codes and evading definition. Still, "Black Indigenous" knowledge can refer to, at least (1) Indigenous Africans, (2) maroon and/or creole communities, or (3) how Black people in the US and the Caribbean have translated and maintain African traditions. And while "maroon" is in the book's title, these different reference points seem to freely mingle across her ideas, which I have some reservations about.

It's possible that I just missed something, as this is a challenging volume, but I just got the impression that this was much more about Blackness than Indigeneity. Some would ask, depending on their understanding of North American and Black history, how can we say where one ends and the other begins? And it can be a fair question, though, I'd think the Duke University Press titles would be the ones where we get some clarity. I'm just gonna end this by saying, the personal nature of the prose portions gave me the impression that ife was perhaps retrieving her own Black Indigenous history--which, if so, would perhaps render my above questions moot--but they just refer to her relations (in the prose, at least) as Black (as opposed to creole, Black Indian, etc.), so I (again) wasn't sure if that was the case.

I just feel like, with how common it is for US academics to render Indigeneity as this abstract thing (Reservation Dogs has a good spoof of this in the episode "Decolonativization" / I'm not Saying ife is doing this, but Wondering), I would have appreciated some more words about what specifically drew them to the topic. Because I know that sovereignty was a big factor, thinking about Black sovereignty (or its lack) in the Americas, but I do think that subject should be thought in concert with Indigenous sovereignty, and I'm just unclear how ife was conceiving of all of that. All my questions aren't really enough to give a low score though. It's an ambitious work, and the poetic imagery (and especially the vocabulary) are rich. Also, I have a bias for genre-blenders. Recommended?

[Bunnie Girl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maroon Choreography provides a treatment of refusal in a lyrical and abstruse manner. While the poems explore blackness through an anti-colonial lens, the colonial tongue is herein utilized and employed too craftily, and its psychedelic tone can engender the reader moreso with neoliberal musings than radical notions - however, this is only a critique of the anti-colonial and more politicized aspects and intentions of the piece. The exploration of blackness and the body translate well through the ephemeral language and unique stylings, but the heaviness and headiness of the diction deviate too far from the practical to be accessible for my tastes and often I feel lost in a soup of complex and disjointed thoughts. In a way, it reminded me of alot of my own writing that I have been wrestling with and perhaps this influences my receptivity.

One must appreciate that this work is a study — specifically an artistic treatment of refusal — before writing the language off as too advantageous or pseudo-intellectual. In fact, the piece did not come off as pseudo-intellectual so much as it appeared excessive — it was highly sophisticated, but felt unnecessarily ambivalent.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful collection of poems on the queer, black experience in America. The title work, Maroon Choreography, touches on so much and flows really well.

ife also frames her work really well; starting and ending the collection with personal notes on the context that brought her to write her poems, and brings the reader to see the work through her eyes.