{"product_id":"girls-that-never-die-isbn-9780593229484","title":"Girls That Never Die","description":"\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Intimate poems that explore feminine shame and violence and imagine what liberation from these threats might look like, from the award-winning author of \u003ci\u003eThe January Children \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Incredibly moving . . . Every single poem is stellar.”—Roxane Gay, author of \u003ci\u003eDifficult Women\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHunger\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eGirls That Never Die\u003c\/i\u003e, award-winning poet Safia Elhillo reinvents the epic to explore Muslim girlhood and shame, the dangers of being a woman, and the myriad violences enacted and imagined against women’s bodies. Drawing from her own life and family histories, as well as cultural myths and news stories about honor killings and genital mutilation, she interlaces the everyday traumas of growing up a girl under patriarchy with magical realist imaginings of rebellion, autonomy, and power. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElhillo writes a new world: women escape their stonings by birds that carry the rocks away; slain girls grow into two, like the hydra of lore, sprouting too numerous to ever be eradicated; circles of women are deemed holy, protected. Ultimately, \u003ci\u003eGirls That Never Die \u003c\/i\u003eis about wrestling ourselves from the threats of violence that constrain our lives, and instead looking to freedom and questioning: \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e[what if i will not die]\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e[what   will govern me then]\u003c\/i\u003e“Fearless . . . has the makings of a breakthrough.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Los Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Amidst moments of personal trauma . . . [Elhillo’s] poems dig deep into how shame is passed down generations of women. . . . With these conversations comes power. And the title of Elhillo’s new book sings of the autonomy she imagines for her girls.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003eNPR\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Rebellion, liberation, multitudes.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Ms. Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eGirls That Never Die\u003c\/i\u003e is an incredibly moving, and well-structured collection of poetry about being a Muslim girl, about shame, about the silent hurts women carry, about the pressures of cultural expectations, about dangerous silences. The writing here is incisive and intimate and eloquent. Truly, a stunning collection of poems. I particularly appreciated the range of forms across the poems and the structure of the book as a whole. Many of the poems end in ways that will leave you gasping. Loved this book. Some standout poems: Ode to My Homegirls, Zamalek, and Orpheus but really every single poem is stellar, no skips as the kids say. Also, A+ cover.”\u003cb\u003e—Roxane Gay, author of \u003ci\u003eDifficult Women\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHunger\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“When I open a new book by Safia Elhillo, I know there will be fearlessness and beauty. There will be a voice that contains multitudes and yet is original and memorable in its daring. There is always lyricism and nuance, and memorable speech that knows how poetry opposes history. Indeed, \u003ci\u003eGirls That Never Die \u003c\/i\u003eis a book that gives us courage, despite all the despairing records of history. How does Elhillo do this? Perhaps by letting these pages be the space where witness and a new kind of mythology meet. And this meeting gives us strength. Why? Because there is in these poems an endlessly compelling voice that is unafraid to be vulnerable in order to tell the truth, a voice that walks against the current, walks between cultures, between languages, bridging them with honesty. Elhillo’s is a voice that walks into the future.”\u003cb\u003e—Ilya Kaminsky, author of \u003ci\u003eDancing in Odessa \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eDeaf Republic \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Safia Elhillo traces the ongoing devastations of patriarchy while simultaneously making a refuge out of language, kinship, and sound. Electric, violet, plural with girls, this work pulses with memory and refusal, awakening language with its lucid imagination. \u003ci\u003eGirls That Never Die\u003c\/i\u003e is a book of resuscitations. Brilliant. And fierce.”\u003cb\u003e—Aracelis Girmay, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Black Maria\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I am rapt, finding here the hurt and the heft of girlhood. All the old silences, all the unuttered shames are ruptured, tended to, and—finally—named. Elhillo is a poet of wisdom, rigor, and vindicating care. \u003ci\u003eGirls That Never Die \u003c\/i\u003eis an astonishment.”\u003cb\u003e—Tracy K. Smith, author of \u003ci\u003eOrdinary Light \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eWade in the Water\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eSudanese by way of D.C., \u003cb\u003eSafia Elhillo \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of \u003ci\u003eThe January Children \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eHome Is Not a Country \u003c\/i\u003eand co-editor of the anthology \u003ci\u003eHalal If You Hear Me\u003c\/i\u003e. Winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, the Arab American Book Award, and the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, she is also the recipient of a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, a Cave Canem Fellowship, and a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from The Poetry Foundation. Her work has appeared in \u003ci\u003ePOETRY Magazine, The Atlantic, \u003c\/i\u003eand The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, among others, and has been translated into several languages.\u003cb\u003eORPHEUS \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMold blooms on the yogurt, furring the edges \u003cbr\u003ein ancient colors. My body is something I have worn \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003efor other people. Even five years ago \u003cbr\u003eI would not recognize myself today, married, gallon bags \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eof animal bone and corncobs in the freezer to boil for stock. \u003cbr\u003eI am far away from the cities of my girlhood, cool concrete \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eof their stairwells. The new therapist wants a list of compliments \u003cbr\u003eI’d give myself on behalf of those who love me, \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eand all I can come up with is\u003ci\u003e resourceful\u003c\/i\u003e. For a time I believed \u003cbr\u003emyself in love with Orpheus, which only meant I loved\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e what I could make if I were free from what happened to my body. \u003cbr\u003eThat man who would never touch me, kept distant and without danger \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eby the barriers of fiction. Then I believed the work would save me. \u003cbr\u003eI have no real use now for those Greek myths, their dead girls, \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewomen raped by men and animals. Today the door is locked. Today nobody \u003cbr\u003eis outside. Muscle cramping mid-lap in the dark blue water. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow I embroider flowers in dim colors in my new country of flowers, \u003cbr\u003eclumsy stitches through the stencil of an orchid, remembering \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003emy younger mouth pressed to a flute, unable to release the breath. \u003cbr\u003eI’d liked that he was a musician, fingers long as spring onions. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs a child I ruined my sweaters, the sleeves tugged down to cover\u003cbr\u003e my hand before touching any doorknob or handling coins. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTeenaged, loitering, urgently lonely. The cotton t-shirts curled \u003cbr\u003eat their sliced hems. Now I am thick-fingered and practical\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e as my mother and her mother, smell of bleach against ceramic. \u003cbr\u003eGone is L’s humid little apartment, violent stain on the bathroom tile, \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ea bottle of crimson nail-polish shattered long ago and leaving \u003cbr\u003estreaks like blood. Her dirty living room where I slept \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003efor nights on end, though my own apartment was nearby, cleaner—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI can’t imagine them, the poems that softened the hearts of gods, \u003cbr\u003ethe poems that changed anything. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat night, metal of the fire escape against my bare legs, I accepted \u003cbr\u003emy first cigarette and she allowed me to tell the entire story \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewithout using the real words. The night cooling and gathered close. \u003cbr\u003eThe way nothing ever feels truly clean \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ein summer. And all I know about Eurydice \u003cbr\u003eis that she died. My every other fact about her is about him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYASMEEN \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ei was born  i was planted \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eat the rupture the root where  land became ocean became land \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eanew i split from my parallel self i split from  its shape refusing root in my fallow mouth \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethe girl i also could have been  cleaving my life neatly \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u0026amp; her name \/ easy \/ i know the story \u0026amp; my name \/ taken from a dead woman \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eall her life \/ my mother wanted to remember \/ to fill an aperture with\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e a girl named for a flower  cut jasmine in a bowl\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewhose oil scents all  our longing \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eour mothers \/  our mothers’ \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003epetals wrung  wilting \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003efor their perfume  garlands hanging from our necks\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePOMEGRANATE \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecause I am their daughter my body is not mine. \u003cbr\u003eI was raised like fruit, unpeeled \u0026amp; then peeled. Raised \u003cbr\u003eto bleed in some man’s bed. I was given my name \u003cbr\u003e\u0026amp; with it my instructions. Pure. \u003ci\u003ePure.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u0026amp; is it wasted on me? Every moment I do not touch \u003cbr\u003emyself, every moment I leave my body on its back \u003cbr\u003eto be a wife while I go somewhere above the room. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI return to the soil \u0026amp; search. I know it’s there. Buried \u003cbr\u003eshallow, wrapped in rags dark with old \u0026amp; forgotten rust, \u003cbr\u003etheir discarded part. Buried without ceremony, \u003cbr\u003eburied like fallen seeds. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI wonder about the trees: Date palms veined \u003cbr\u003ethrough the fruit with the copper taste of cutting. \u003cbr\u003eGuavas that, when slit, purple dark as raw meat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI have to wonder, of course, about the blood orange, \u003cbr\u003eabout the pomegranate, splayed open, like something \u003cbr\u003ethat once was alive \u0026amp; remains.National bestseller","brand":"One World","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300567077093,"sku":"NP9780593229484","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593229484.jpg?v=1767728166","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/girls-that-never-die-isbn-9780593229484","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}