MOTHERWORLD: A DEVOTIONAL FOR THE ALTER-LIFE

“mama say this earth will outlive this world,” Destiny Hemphill writes, and in this gleaming collection she gathers what of this life might bloom into another. Through rituals, hymns, memories, murmurings, chants, and psalms, motherworld convenes the women and waters whose routes mark an otherwise from the brutal arrangements of the here and now. This transformative practice is not for the faint of heart. Toni Cade Bambara asks: “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well? . . . cause wholeness is no trifling matter.” And here is a poet who answers with a resounding yes—her affirmation a root system, fortified by all the nourishment of blood and earth. Hemphill’s motherworld shimmers with that brightdark joy that is grief’s marrow. What luck and work to carry the instruction of these poems. I will be holding them close and pressing them into many hands.

— Claire Schwartz

motherworld transforms language into something map-like, topographical, somatic. A vast heredity speaks out in this beautiful collection of poetry—it is the multifarious self and all those that came before. A hymn of continuous death and rebirth is here. It is prophesy in a voice that is arresting and fierce. “i am trying to remold my mouth to speak more bravely,” Hemphill writes. She examines the past, but is not mired by it. Grief and love are emotions that are processed through the body, which is painful, but a means towards tangibility and revolution. This language-driven reality gives us something living to hold in our very mouths, and transform. These poems feel godly. And shared. This book shares a secret with the reader: “the earth will outlive this world.” And I for one needed very much to hear it.

— Bianca Stone