Anarcha Speaks: A History in Poems

The reimagined story of Anarcha, an enslaved Black woman, subjected to medical experiments by Dr. Marion Sims. Selected by Tyehimba Jess as a National Poetry Series winner.

In this provocative collection by award-winning poet and artist Dominique Christina, the historical life of Anarcha is personally reenvisioned. Anarcha was an enslaved Black woman who endured experimentation and torture at the hands of Dr. Marion Sims, more commonly known as the father of modern gynecology. Christina enables Anarcha to tell her story without being relegated to the margins of history, as a footnote to Dr. Sims’s life. These poems are a reckoning, a resurrection, and a proper way to remember Anarcha . . . and grieve her.

Dominique Christina was a classroom teacher at the secondary and post-secondary level for ten years. She was the National Poetry Champion in 2011 and Women of the World Slam Champion in 2012 and 2014. She is the author of The Bones, The Breaking, The Balm; They Are All Me; and This Is Woman’s Work. She has been a featured speaker at hundreds of colleges and universities nationally and internationally.

Foreword by Tyehimba Jess

Section I: She Is a Woman Therefore She Remembers

Anarcha Will Speak and It Will Be So
Ghosts I Got
The Preacher Give Us the Story of Job
Benediction
Massa’s House
Don’t Wanna Hear It But
From a Star I See Everything
Black Gold
The Chil’ren Might Know
They Bringin in More
Anarcha Feels Movement
One Boy Named Montgomery
Lucy Made a Girl
She Need Help I Caint Manage It
The Unquenchable Season
Pronounce Me Lord
I Shoulda Known Heaven First
When I Get There
She Got Further Than Anybody
Conjure
I Prove
Massa Wants to Know
A Powerful Spell
Alabama but I Don’t Know It
The Missus, Big with Somebody Too
What Do It Take
Danger on the Other Side
Little Bird Don’t Know Nuthin
This Time It Hurts
Anarcha Dreams, OR How You Know You Ain’t Gone
the midwife is no midwife
The Drowned Boy, Call Him John
The Doctor by Now
Marion Sims, the Doctor
Anarcha Makes Milk Anyway
Dr. Sims Comes Back, Makes an Offer
Anarcha Will Leave in the Morning
The Etymology of Anarchy
Doctor/Massa Wants More

Section II: The Juxtaposition of Experience

Blood Misbehaves: One Surgery as Anarcha Sees It
Blood Misbehaves: The Surgery as Dr. Sims Sees It
Not Dead but . . .
How Doctor Sims Sees His Work
How Anarcha Sees His Work
Dr. Sims Makes Something New
When the Quiver Stops, Ain’t No Jesus
Dr. Sims Will Buy 9 More
Anarcha, in Position
Dr. Sims Explains
Flicker
Dr. Sims Comes Clean
Anarcha, Anarcha Come On Out . . .
New Gals, No Good
Things Past Tellin . . .
A Wizard and His Magic, Nothing More
No Magic, No How
The Doctor Figures It Out
The Doctor Gives Her Opium After
Conniption
First Is Last: How the Doctor Sees It
First Is Last: How Anarcha Sees It

Acnowledgments: A Dedication