This image is the cover for the book Septet for the Luminous Ones, Wesleyan Poetry Series

Septet for the Luminous Ones, Wesleyan Poetry Series

Continuing her search for a neotropical mythos, in this brilliant second collection poet fahima ife articulates various scenes of subduction. Spoken in quiet recognition and grounded in desire, Septet for the Luminous Ones imagines a lush soundscape textured in oblique spiritual fusion of the Taíno and Yoruba. Or, what it sounded like coming together for the first time, and what it sounds like ever after—breathless, diaspora calling. Similar to the incidents in Maroon Choreography, what resounds in these poems is an ecstatic love song of the Caribbean Americas, of the main lands and islands, shaped and reshaped as breathwork, ritual, communion, and fantasy. In essence, the collection speaks to raise the vibrational frequencies of all species on Earth through a sensual pulse of Black English.


From Alchemical Sirens

it flickers in
balsamic appeal


moist in the palms of our hands
a psalm a lamp a sap in our laps

an asp

plausible love song          after love poems
were last put on hold

as in b l a ck a r t
the new black art is this —

find the lost soul and love it

fahima ife

fahima ife is a devotional lyrical poet. She is associate professor of Black Aesthetics and Poetics at the University of California Santa Cruz where she also directs the Black Studies minor in the department of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. She is author of Maroon Choreography and the forthcoming chapbook Abalone. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, and featured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of the African Diaspora, Poets & Writers, Poetry Daily, The Kenyon Review, and The American Academy of Poets. She lives on the central California coast.

Wesleyan University Press