an identity polyptych

by Tameca L Coleman

isbn 9781988979441
120 pages

This hybrid-memoir by multi-genre writer and artist Tameca L Coleman addresses familial estrangement, being in-between things as a mixed-race Black person, and beginning to move towards reconciliation.

120 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2021

About the author

Meca'Ayo (Tameca L Coleman) is a singer, multi-genre writer, itinerant nerd, massage therapist, and point and shoot art dabbler who currently lives in Denver Colorado. Their writing and photography have been featured in literary magazines, art exhibits, newspapers, and other venues and publications. Their first book an identity polyptych debuted from The Elephants in 2021.

Meca’Ayo Cole is a published author of poetry, creative nonfiction, journalism, fiction, and hybrid works. Their books include an identity polyptych (2021, The Elephants), and their work has been anthologized in Poems from the Back Forty from Columbine Poets of Colorado 2018, Cellar Door: December 2010, Tales to Oddify: Fall/Winter 2009.

Reviews

[Zoe Tuck · Rating 5 out of 5]

A polyptych is a painting divided into connected sections. When I go to the internet to confirm this, I’m reminded that polyptychs are often altarpieces. This image grounds the abstraction of intersection in a clear material image of a hinge. Furthermore, the religious connotation prompts the question: what becomes possible if we consider ourselves and our pasts as worthy of witness? I have a theory about Meca’Ayo Cole’s An Identity Polyptych. I think that their polyptych is also a fractal. Look closely at one of its panels and you’ll find that that panel called forgiveness, the possibility of reconciliation, considering the past, Blackness, names, photography, memory, place, houses, class, childhood, violence, or the sacred, is itself not singular but multiple. Polyptychs within polyptychs, constructed in service to reconciliation and, as Cole writes in their acknowledgments, restoration.

Read the rest at my reading blog:

https://www.zoetuck.com/reading-blog/...

[Monty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and challenging poetry.

[Lauren Samblanet · Rating 5 out of 5]

an achy, beautiful and necessary meditation on violence, identity and reconciliation. the photographs further added vibrancy to already gripping poems. i was so moved by this book and i can't wait to read more by this author.