Undrowned
Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals
“I believe in the possibility of dorsal, or stabilizing practices in our own lives.” So speaks Alexis Pauline Gumbs in an introduction to one of the subversive and poetic meditations that make up this collection. Gumbs contrasts her experience of learning about the complex, resilient, and misunderstood lives of marine mammals with that of Black feminism, and finds in both a determination to live, to change, and to liberate. The result is a kind of devotional, dedicated to the shape-shifting buoyancy of emergent strategy. Keep it on your nightstand and read a meditation or two before sleeping, knowing you will rest easier with the wisdom of the deep.