Fall 2019 | Dominique Christina | Vol. 3, Iss. 2
Welcome to The Fight & The Fiddle, a publication of the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University. Each issue gives you a 360-degree view of a Black poet, including an interview, new poems, a critical essay, and a writing prompt inspired by our featured poet.
When Dominique Christina stepped onto the poetry stage it was clear she was a force to be reckoned with. In her three years of performance she earned five national poetry slam titles, including two Women of the World titles (2012, 2014) and a National Slam Poetry Championship (2011). She is the author of four books, most recently Anarcha Speaks (Beacon 2018), a National Poetry Series award winner. The collection is a clear-eyed and deeply felt testimony of the experience of an enslaved woman whose body was repeatedly violated by a white doctor in pursuit of his scientific inquiry. A former teacher, an always activist, and an international performer of her work, Dominique Christina is also a writer for HBO’s series High Maintenence, and she is a full-time poet.
- The Interview: Dominique Christina talks with editor Lauren K. Alleyne about activism, her love of Poe, and the poem as an articulation of freedom.
- Critical Review: In his piece “The Art of Shattering Silence,” Furious Flower scholar-in-residence Dr. McKinley Melton examines the ways in which Christina writes the Black woman’s body and its complicated relationships to history.
- Poems: Read “What the Old Folks Knew …,” “Haitian Lullaby: for Cecilia Laurent,” and “In the Morning She Died For It” by Dominique Christina
- Writing Prompt: Unburying, or imagine the poem as a shovel in your hands.
Photo by Adriana Hammond
Cover Design by Megan Hinton