Body of Render

"Language is action in these poems, which are utterances of pleading, fighting, and mending in an America we can hardly stand to look at straight on.Body of Render is a book of saying what must be said: 'Capitol Hill be voice of all your people, be just/in haunt, you must be voice, must.' The risks Felicia Zamora takes with form, syntax, and breath pay off in poem after poem and makeBody of Render one of the most dynamic, most transformative collections I've read in years." —Maggie Smith, author ofGood Bones

"In 1917, NAACP organizer James Weldon Johnson wrote 'To America,' a poem in which he asked, 'How would you have us, as we are?/...Rising or falling?' And with the (unjust, Russian-influenced) election of 2016, one hundred years later we (migrants, people of color, women, queer, trans and non-binary folx, folx with disabilities, abuse survivors, and all who believe equity is true freedom) are still forced to fight for better answers than the ones America is giving. How grateful I am to hear Felicia Zamora's heart and voice rising, reminding us that "'alone is not us.' Here is a book that is part elegy, part ecstasy, part clapback, and all vision. How she zooms in on the microscopic wonder of cells only to zoom out to remind us what we are capable of. 'oh / unanswerable molecule of you; oh inorganic beast; oh / organic beast; burn down, day day, then rise.' Thank you, Felicia, for lifting us (and yourself!) up with these prayer-poems. May this book usher in freedom—simple and mighty." —TC Tolbert, author of Gephyromania

“In response to the 2016 election and resulting stripping of basic human rights, Zamora penned this compelling and dynamic collection to enrage and inspire action.”—Karla J. Strand, Ms. Magazine's list of Poetry for the Rest of Us 2020