She Lives Here

Kristina Hamlett's debut collection of poetry and prose, She Lives Here, moves toward a jubilant celebration of womanhood, Blackness, strength, and finding your own kind of joy. Rewriting the narrative of one's life is not always easy, especially when faced with racism, sexism, and religious dogmatism, but as she moves as a young girl from a Haitian community in Queens to Virginia, Kristina throws out the rules that try to dictate her life story and rewrites her narrative. Each section of this collection is juicy and lush with memory, ancestry, mangoes, avocados, dance, and love.