No Knowledge Is Complete Until It Passes Through My Body

Asiya Wadud

Part transcript, part transmission, these poems explore the intelligence of the body, especially the body under duress. As Tina Campt has put it: 'Asiya Wadud is a weaver of magical syllables. In her hands, language has weft and warp, words have intricate texture, and sentences unravel and reassemble as tangled webs of gold. In No Knowledge Is Complete Until It Passes Through My Body, her sentences enfold black feminism in verse. They craft lyrical-spiritual duets with Harriet Jacobs and Christina Sharpe, with Angela Davis and Hortense Spillers, with Dionne Brand and Saidiya Hartman, with Audre Lorde and Okwui Okpokwasili. Her words wrap womanism in rhyme.'