Mother Body

Author: Diamond Forde

Publisher: Saturnalia Books (2021)

Mother Body is an intersectional exploration of the trauma and agency held within a body defined by its potential to mother. As Mother Body unfolds, it tasks its reader to understand the expected and unexpected manifestations of motherhood, through menstruation and womb work, but also generational, societal, and literary mothering. With a variety of forms and modes, these poems unpack the experiences of a fat, black woman’s body while also manifesting joy, resistance, and celebration.

"In this rollicking, audacious debut, Diamond Forde celebrates, mourns and redefines the journey of the fat girl through a landscape fixed on her disappearance and destruction. Forde brands this groundbreaking work with a subversive, self-assertive signature fixed unerringly on its target—anyone and everyone who refuses to recognize the fat girl for the wonder she truly is."

–Patricia Smith