Aurielle Marie in conversation with Da'Shaun Harrison - Gumbo Ya Ya In-Store Talk & Book Signing

Aurielle Marie in conversation with Da'Shaun Harrison - Gumbo Ya Ya In-Store Talk & Book Signing

Saturday, Jun 25, 2022 3:00 PM

Location:
A Cappella Books
208 Haralson Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA 30307

A Cappella Books welcomes essayist and poet Aurielle Marie in honor of the release of her striking new collection “Gumbo Ya Ya.” Aurielle Marie will appear in conversation with Da'Shaun Harrison, author of ”Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness.”

This event is free and open to the public. Copies of both titles will be available for purchase. Masks are required.

About the Book

“Gumbo Ya Ya,” Aurielle Marie’s stunning debut, is a cauldron of hearty poems exploring race, gender, desire, and violence in the lives of Black gxrls, soaring against the backdrop of a contemporary South. These poems are loud, risky, and unapologetically rooted in the glory of Black gxrlhood. The collection opens with a heartrending indictment of injustice. What follows is a striking reimagination of the world, one where no Black gxrl dies “by the barrel of the law” or “for loving another Black gxrl.” Part familial archival, part map of Black resistance, ”Gumbo Ya Ya” catalogs the wide gamut of Black life at its intersections, with punching cultural commentary and a poetic voice that holds tenderness and sharpness in tandem. It asks us to chew upon both the rich meat and the tough gristle, and in doing so we walk away more whole than we began and thoroughly satisfied.

Excerpt from “transhistorical for the x in my gxrls”

What I mean is, this country is mine
if only because from my mouth I spit its loam
and unspun a noose. I won’t exploit the only
metaphor they gave us willingly, and instead hunt for
other vicious things to make a muse. I earned this country.
I owe it nothing. With my infinite, infant hand, I manipulated
a death sentence into a compound-complex one.
from the umbilical, I bled a life worth writing down and in
a century’s time, there will be another word created still
for the weeping magic of this same story: a Black gxrl’s first breath.

About the Author

Aurielle Marie is a Black and queer essayist, poet, and cultural strategist hailing from the Deep South. A 2019 Ploughshares Emerging Writer award recipient, she’s received invitations to fellowships from many literary institutions, including Lambda Literary, VONA Voices, and Tin House. Her work is featured in TriQuarterly, Southeast Review, Black Warrior, and other journals. Aurielle Marie writes and speaks about Blackness, bodies, sex, and pop culture from a Black feminist lens.

About the Conversation Partner

Da’Shaun Harrison is a Black, fat, queer and trans theorist and abolitionist in Atlanta, GA. Harrison is the author of "Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness," and is a public speaker who often gives talks and leads workshops on Blackness, queerness, gender, fatness, disabilities, and their intersections. You can find more of their work and their services on their website, at dashaunharrison.com