"In her own words, Semaj Brown 'is a poet for suffocated voices.' Not only does Bleeding Fire! Tap the Eternal Spring of Regenerative Light open our veins on the page to resuscitate us all from a sweep of history that is searing and damning but she shakes all the boundaries of what we mistake for reality. Semaj Brown's Bleeding Fire! Tap the Eternal Spring of Regenerative Light explodes with so much promise of how to sing back the dead on the brink of madness. This book is a collection of poems that become excavation; archaeological dig unlocking, unearthing, unsettling the margins that conjure forth profound metaphysical mysteries. The themes of ancient metrics, Middle Passage resistance, Black body representation, the tapestry of marginalized mapmakers, shape-shifters, musicians becoming magicians, and a testament of Black love are served to us with reverence and purpose. Semaj Brown speaks to us through the dream of poetry where 'the box of drowned eyes that talk from the grave' usher in an underworld where we all learn how to howl our names backwards in the dark. These necessary poems teach us about kinship and all the secrets of gratitude and generosity."Jaki Shelton Green - Poet Laureate of North Carolina
"In her own words, Semaj Brown 'is a poet for suffocated voices.' Not only does Bleeding Fire! Tap the Eternal Spring of Regenerative Light open our veins on the page to resuscitate us all from a sweep of history that is searing and damning but she shakes all the boundaries of what we mistake for reality. Semaj Brown's Bleeding Fire! Tap the Eternal Spring of Regenerative Light explodes with so much promise of how to sing back the dead on the brink of madness. This book is a collection of poems that become excavation; archaeological dig unlocking, unearthing, unsettling the margins that conjure forth profound metaphysical mysteries. The themes of ancient metrics, Middle Passage resistance, Black body representation, the tapestry of marginalized mapmakers, shape-shifters, musicians becoming magicians, and a testament of Black love are served to us with reverence and purpose. Semaj Brown speaks to us through the dream of poetry where 'the box of drowned eyes that talk from the grave' usher in an underworld where we all learn how to howl our names backwards in the dark. These necessary poems teach us about kinship and all the secrets of gratitude and generosity."Jaki Shelton Green - Poet Laureate of North Carolina
