{"product_id":"green-of-all-heads","title":"GREEN OF ALL HEADS","description":"\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eWinner of the 2026 PEN\/Voelcker Award for Poetry\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eLonglisted for the 2026 Griffin Poetry Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 0in;\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb id=\"docs-internal-guid-720e8d36-7fff-762a-bb0c-4d372ddd24aa\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWritten over the span of a decade,\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eGREEN OF ALL HEADS\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a work of formal range and emotional urgency. In the coinciding wakes of tragic loss and new motherhood, Aracelis Girmay examines the entangled temporalities of an aging parent and newly born children.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eThis vital work grapples with what it means to attend to life in the context of corporate industries of birth and death. In language shaped by these pressures, she turns to what is small, unruly, nationless, plural – flowers, speech – to reach toward new relational and political possibility. Away from the fixed and monumental, and toward that which is fleeting, she writes: “-- i am learning to lift -- my voice -- like a flower -- in -- a field of flowers --” The result is a language broken and emboldened by love.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eGREEN OF ALL HEADS\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“In many African-based cosmologies, death is not the end of life nor does it mark an absence of the living. 'Heads' are not only the origin of reason and thought but a sacred realm where time expands and our ancestors keep on living. In \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003eGREEN OF ALL HEADS\u003c\/em\u003e,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e Aracelis Girmay mourns her father’s death, but the experience becomes a knot in a web of relations between the human body, memory, political history, the capitalist economy on death and the trans-physical. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cem\u003eGREEN OF ALL HEADS\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003etakes us to Eritrea, Piñones, Puerto Rico (sacred land of the maroons), to funeral homes in the U.S., dentist offices and bodegas\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003emaking\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e us question how we live the death of our loved ones, how, for some, it has become an individual experience. Yet Girmay insists on the communal, shared understanding of death\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThrough this masterfully written poetry collection, centered on the materiality of memory and remembrance, we connect with that which exists at the other side of perception.  Aracelis Girmay creates territories of simultaneity and convergence, while pondering death as a communal experience.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAt last, we have a collection of poetry that talks about death in our intimate language of affections.” \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Mayra Santos-Febres, author of \u003cem\u003eLa otra Julia\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eBoat People\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“…is liturgy, is prayer, is\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eGREEN OF ALL HEADS\u003c\/i\u003e, for the living and for the dead; for the quotidian and for the extraordinary.  Precipitated by the unexpected transition of her father to the realm of the Ancestors, the poet Aracelis Girmay decodes the Great Code that is poetry to bring to the ‘smallest bone of (our) ear’ the single memory that is love, fecund in its singularity. Alongside the poet we pace the rhythms of grief as well as the everyday to approach the revelation that while death never rhymes with life, it provides us the extended bassline riff supporting our livity —those bright, bold notes echoing the sound we were and are and will be running out of this life. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e…is benediction, is prayer, is eulogy, is chant; is mourning ground, is grief, genealogies of; is life, is is \u0026amp; am, is altar, is\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eGREEN OF ALL HEADS\u003c\/i\u003e, filmy netsela of blessings gently landing on our heads to embrace, to hold our fragile mortality, ever luminous in the ordinary.” \u003cstrong\u003e—m. nourbeSe philip, author of \u003ci\u003eShe Tries Her Tongue – Her Silence Softly Breaks and Zong!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eCHILDHOOD\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the apartment with the orange\u003cbr\u003eshag carpet, is one long table\u003cbr\u003esurrounded by chairs,\u003cbr\u003eonly four of them matching,\u003cbr\u003eand cups and pitchers and food, and large,\u003cbr\u003esilver plates for sharing, a pot,\u003cbr\u003ea ladle, a child’s small and noisy toy,\u003cbr\u003eand all of it empty of people.\u003cbr\u003eEveryone has rushed out hurriedly\u003cbr\u003ein the middle. Somewhere,\u003cbr\u003ethat room exists still, floating\u003cbr\u003etoward the sun. The meat\u003cbr\u003eand grapes petrified with years.\u003cbr\u003eThe cloth bleached by light\u003cbr\u003epersisting through the windows.\u003cbr\u003eNow the rattling of plates, the clattering\u003cbr\u003eof forks and spoons. Louder to us it calls\u003cbr\u003ethe nearer it gets to the end.\u003cbr\u003eIt is saying one last thing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47644559147237,"sku":null,"price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback (signed)","offer_id":47644559180005,"sku":null,"price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":47644559212773,"sku":null,"price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"ebook","offer_id":48134926958821,"sku":null,"price":5.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/files\/GreenOfAllHeads_CVR_1200px_RGB_SM.jpg?v=1743784663","url":"https:\/\/shop.boaeditions.org\/products\/green-of-all-heads","provider":"Boa Editions","version":"1.0","type":"link"}