"Monica Hand's
me and Nina
is a beautiful book by a soul survivor. In these poems she sings deep songs of violated intimacy and the hard work of repair. The poems are unsentimental, blood-red, and positively true, note for note, like the singing of Nina Simone herself. Hand has written a moving, deeply satisfying, and unforgettable book."—Elizabeth Alexander
In an intimate conversation with the "High Priestess of Soul," Monica A. Hand surveys the places and moods of alienation through poems that are as musical and stylistically diverse as Nina Simone's work. Hand readily embraces a "mass hypnosis" style, putting "a spell on [us]" with her intensely passionate cries and commitment to embracing both tragedy and exuberance in these insightful poems.
From "Dear Nina":
I am not recession
depression
oppression
compression
crooked line
broken line
polka dot
parking lot
or spot
I am a
Gift from God
I know that
I am an
un-kept
solo song
Monica A. Hand
is a poet and book artist currently living in Harlem, New York. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in
Aunt Chloe
,
Black Renaissance Noire
The Sow's Ear
Drunken Boat
Beyond the Frontier
African-American Poetry for the 21st Century
Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade
, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in poetry and poetry in translation from Drew Universityand is a founding member of Poets for Ayiti.