the body has memories

The body has memories, is a BODY of work residing in the BLACK FEMALE BODY. The cover, pages, and ink—skin, organs & blood; conjuring the story of a life marked by moments of invasion, healing, and the reflections of both. Oliver’s work is a monument to the memories of her flesh recollected in the service of grief, growth, and knowing. The body has memories, is a testimony to will carved from the center of personal riptides, a recitation, and affirmation of being.
– Ayodele Nzinga, MFA, Ph.D., Poet Laureate, Oakland CA, Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame

This Arkansas native will take you on a journey to her arrival in San Francisco that will provide a look into a body’s memory, personal and historical. In this tome, she presents us with a cascade of poems overlooking a landscape that seeks to review visceral experiences that hide within the framework of her body’s emotion. Such as, “Holla if you hear me, cry sister cry, or die nigga die. She invites the reader to fill in blanks offered in her book that engages one to participate in their own body’s memory. From joy to the crippling trauma’s of surgical scars, the suffrages of the womb and lineage for survival evoking personal and historical accounts of what Harriet Tubman and other freedom warrior’s must have endured going to battle for life. Oliver’s work is a fascinating read!
– Tureeda Mikell, poet writer, Story Medicine Woman QiGong Energy Therapist, author of, SYNCHRONICITY: The Oracle of Sun Medicine

the body has memories is an exciting collision of epigenetic and personal history. Underneath the question of “who(se) am I?”, adrienne danyelle oliver unapologetically plumbs the depths and heights of an imposed and reclaimed identity with candor and grace.
– Airea D. Matthews, Prize Recipient, Yale Series of Younger Poets, author of Simulacra