Septet for the Luminous Ones

By fahima ife

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

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
• Release date: Feb 6, 2024
• ISBN: 9780819500946

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.

Book preview

THE DRIFTS

entheogenic rush

intensive care unit

autosomal music

of spirit, artificial symbiont

alchemical sirens

acid west

we need to talk about the gulf coast

[ dismemberment of the social body ]

i see now (( ima have to let you go

magnitude and bond

aghori, century seven

cannabis sativa

a seam of electricity

voyage of a sable poetics

our general banality

recession

lucius

cosmogony 77

afterlife of the party, the order of time

communicado, two sips

discipline, for mati

a flicker for you, let you enter as if entering me

i go back to april 1978

preface to a twenty-volume spiritual ascent

grapevine swing

neoromanticism

the seven players, and our consorts

alchemical sirens

i am like a radio, channel of my own

black art is loud as a skunk at midnight

.. a praise break

notes and discography

Septet for the Luminous Ones

entheogenic rush

i.

coming with is easier to blur

after iris and sacrament

signal the spores

as body turns to vapor

in a portal

in a scene of

blessed fusion

anonymous birds float in as black

rasta man says

life begins at dawn with the mycelium

cruising lone coast is easier than ever

to go on insane among the insane

just venting to one’s mutual selves in public

singing love among species

and of lichen

in a bone yard

in a sly curve of

laughter

as if a flush verb against a winged flesh wall as if a

cask rushing out the polis calling out a flash of all

saying floralwe must bless

it now

ii.

fungus turns to riverain inside

a wooden juke

listening to it release us

beyond beyond

in the after mama koko says

they sent all you nigros out to the inland

empire with the illusion of a big house

an oasis

now holy from the inlands

wow and yes

i wanted us to sing and dance

a mycological whirl

to enter it holographic

and make it rain

in life we are skanking on a coast

in need of husk

curling at the rims

beneath the crowns of

iii.

being wind it says

is like having a

holosensual experience

in ultra consciousness

in the monastic vein

of learning how to weave

training one’s hip in the cadence of

shepherd may i have another reason

it gets lonely inside the quarters

beating it over the head with a concept

like bebop be bop be bop bop bop

all night long

learning how to cruise

learning how to tense

and teasein public

i was tuning in to practice