robinks's review against another edition
challenging
medium-paced
5.0
I really enjoyed this collection, not having read Hortense Spillers’s work that these poems are a response to. The imagery and mouthfeel of each line is so bold, and I liked the variation in the styles. I especially loved “an element of radical waywardness,” “It would appear reactionary, if not dumb, to insist on the integrity of female/male gender,” “daughters have their own agenda,” “a network of feeling, of continuity,” “an open school of realism,” “glitters with a notion of black disobedience,” “This is the domain of invisibility,” “a startling moment of mutual revelation,” “and perhaps that really is enough,” “that point at which the make-up rolls away,” and “having forgotten to count.” My only critique is that having the notes in the back and not printed above or alongside each of the poems meant I was flipping back and forth constantly, but it wasn’t enough of a deterrent for me to rate this any lower than 5 stars.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Child death, Blood, and Domestic abuse
Minor: Child abuse, Pregnancy, Slavery, and Gun violence
thegingerbreadhag's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
4.0
I have to learn to read trilogy in the right order, for I read this one last after reading M Archives and Dub !
It is beautiful, but the impact M Archives had was so strong that my expectations were sky-high, and I knew Spill wouldn't live up to them. I'm still amazed by Gumbs' writing, her words are bewitching, or it's like I'm being waken up from hypnosis. I don't know how to explain it, but having now read her poetic tryptic, I truly believe she enlightens and heals us. Just wow.
It is beautiful, but the impact M Archives had was so strong that my expectations were sky-high, and I knew Spill wouldn't live up to them. I'm still amazed by Gumbs' writing, her words are bewitching, or it's like I'm being waken up from hypnosis. I don't know how to explain it, but having now read her poetic tryptic, I truly believe she enlightens and heals us. Just wow.
oceanelle's review against another edition
5.0
Probably the most beautiful book I'll read in 2017. Wow.
drlove2018's review against another edition
5.0
A very creative concept that also manages to be compulsively readable poetry. Uniquely compelling.
soafricane's review against another edition
5.0
In this prose & poetry collection, Gumbs maintains intimate literary conversations with Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Phillis Wheatley, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Shelley Eversley, and several other Black feminist writers—or as Gumbs describes them: “the literary archive of freedom-seeking black women”.
Hortense Spillers, whom the first first syllables of her last name title the book, says of it and Gumbs that “Nobody else is like Alexis. The kind of conversation that the text is setting up between poetry and prose, and between a poetic posture and a scholarly posture, I don't think I've ever seen that.”
The pieces Gumbs offers cut through spatial and temporal fibers of the works cited placing Spill in a unique location within Black feminist vaults of literature.
It’s sincerely one of the most incomparable, flooding and bewitching non-fiction texts of our time.
Hortense Spillers, whom the first first syllables of her last name title the book, says of it and Gumbs that “Nobody else is like Alexis. The kind of conversation that the text is setting up between poetry and prose, and between a poetic posture and a scholarly posture, I don't think I've ever seen that.”
The pieces Gumbs offers cut through spatial and temporal fibers of the works cited placing Spill in a unique location within Black feminist vaults of literature.
It’s sincerely one of the most incomparable, flooding and bewitching non-fiction texts of our time.
indielittttt's review against another edition
5.0
Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity by alexis pauline gumbs
I really enjoyed this book. It was quite beautifully written. It’s poems that are all written in response and conversation with Hortense Spillers’ essay ‘Black, White, and In Color.’ Each poem or ‘scene’ revolves around different aspects of Black feminist theory and praxis.
4.5/5⭐️
I really enjoyed this book. It was quite beautifully written. It’s poems that are all written in response and conversation with Hortense Spillers’ essay ‘Black, White, and In Color.’ Each poem or ‘scene’ revolves around different aspects of Black feminist theory and praxis.
4.5/5⭐️