{"product_id":"the-span-of-a-small-forever-poems-isbn-9780063319172","title":"The Span of a Small Forever: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eWith echoes of Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals and Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, an extraordinary debut collection from a prize-winning poet that chronicles a Black woman’s journey through disability, the byzantine healthcare system, life-giving, taking, and sacrifice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith breathtaking lyricism and a vulnerability that pierces the heart, April Gibson journeys through the emotional abysses, the daily pleasures, the frustrations, and the joys of being a Black woman living with chronic illness. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGibson offers a unique perspective on “the body,” viewing disability and healthcare through both feminist and socio-economic lenses filtered by race and faith. Through gorgeous sensory language that migrates memories, from carefree innocence to the ravages formed in its absence, Gibson bears witness to grief, courage, and resistance to redefine herself on her own terms.  \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGibson presents her body as a “looking glass” that re-envisions illness, womanhood, motherhood, religious relics and collective loss through her physicality, through her lamenting, through her unearthing, reckoning and rebirth. Not only do we see her, but see the “we” in her. The Span of a Small Forever is both testimony and transformation—heart-shattering in its honesty, it ultimately offers us transcendent beauty, nourishment, and the strength we need to go on in our lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow does a body bear the unbearable and find the strength to go on?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eChronic Illness Poetry:\u003c\/b\u003e An unflinching poetic account of living with Crohn’s disease, from misdiagnosis and medical trauma to the daily realities of life with an autoimmune condition.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eBlack Womanhood:\u003c\/b\u003e A powerful exploration of navigating the healthcare system, family, and faith as a Black woman on the South Side of Chicago.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eMotherhood and Family:\u003c\/b\u003e Tender and raw verses on raising sons, grappling with family history, and redefining the self in the face of profound change.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eBody Image and Identity:\u003c\/b\u003e A courageous testimony that confronts scars, shame, and the journey toward reclaiming one’s own body on one’s own terms.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e | \u003cp\u003e   “The poet April Gibson heard us when we pleaded how we needed something new. She felt the shift in the wind when we reached for something revelatory bare. \u003cem\u003eThe Span of a Small Forever\u003c\/em\u003e is a book for the unsung. . . This testimony takes us to the scary basement of self-discovery. After reading, we all will become closer to the small and mighty miracles within. \u003cem\u003eThe Span of a Small Forever\u003c\/em\u003e is no small book, and the poems that make up this fine collection are not small songs.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDerrick Harriell, author of Cotton and Ropes\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e“The Span of a Small Forever \u003c\/em\u003eis the unpretentious feat of a writer with a crystalline vision. Gibson’s dexterous music underscores her stories of black girlhood and womanhood from escaping church to teen pregnancy and triumph despite the medical industrial complex’s failures. This collection of poems centers self-love, reclamation of this woman’s power, and the highs and lows of motherhood hollered from the Southside of Chicago despite the ravages of Crohn's disease, racism, and naysayers. Gibson is a tough and tender somebody, whose pen illuminates illness and the radiance of the small beauties in everyday life.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMaya Marshall, author of All the Blood Involved in Love\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Gibson challenges and dispels so many stereotypes of what it means to be a Black woman, a mother, a human. . .her pen is mighty sharp, and everything in her tool bag is unafraid to be different. In reading \u003cem\u003eThe Span of a Small Forever \u003c\/em\u003eI am constantly reminded of the dared beauty in \u003cem\u003eA Street in Bronzeville\u003c\/em\u003e by Gwendolyn Brooks. Each time I get lost in these poems I’m left with an experience that leaves me more in tuned to the world in language that is electric. I say thank you, poet. We been waiting on you.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRandall Horton, author of Dead Weight: A Memoir in Essays\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"What I love most about April Gibson’s poetry is its breathtaking scope. \u003cem\u003eThe Span of a Small Forever \u003c\/em\u003etakes us from a girlhood spent in the houses of her ancestors to teenage motherhood that blossoms behind the barred windows of an institution, and from a painful childhood marked by illness to an adult's acceptance of her changed body. In each poem, Gibson offers us the unabashed details of what it means to grow into Black womanhood . . . This is a powerful debut, and April Gibson is a singular poet.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDestiny O. Birdsong, author of Negotiations\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Gibson’s collection is substantial; it is a debut that is not a glimmer of promising talent but \u003cstrong\u003ethe annunciation of a career\u003c\/strong\u003e\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Amistad","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44890609909989,"sku":"NP9780063319172","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780063319172.jpg?v=1730233682","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-span-of-a-small-forever-poems-isbn-9780063319172","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}