When I read it, I am reminded of the ways in which language can be repurposed as an amplification device against narratives that seek to erase, bury, and diminish. This work positions snapshots of contemporary black, queer selfhood against an embodied historical backdrop in order to trace the tolls and infringements of white dominant structures and embedded historical violence upon the body. Magazine 'In this debut collection, Phillips's poems breathe a story as long as time, in which history holds to its pattern of the same crimes committed again and again against the Black body.'-Laura Eve Engel, ''Let's deflate something that we can all agree is / monstrous, and take its air inside us,'' writes Xandria Phillips in 'Elegy for the Living and Breathing.' A decolonization of space and self is made physical in this stunning, textured, and ambitious collection of poems. HULL is their bold indictment of prejudice.'-Rebecca Foster, Foreword 'This complex and historically layered collection takes some work on the part of white cis readers but it's just the work we should be doing.'-Karla Strand, Ms. 'In the tradition of Natasha Trethewey and Danez Smith, Phillips sees a through line from slavery to racism past and present.

Hull by Xandria Phillips