Author: Amy Shimshon-Santo
Narrator: Amy Shimshon-Santo
Unabridged: 0 hr 50 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Author's Republic
Published: 12/29/2022
Genre: Poetry
CATASTROPHIC MOLTING (FlowerSong Press) Amy Shimshon-Santo uses the tools of language to remind readers there is power in repudiation, comfort in collective mourning, and possibility in reimagining. The book title is inspired by the molting ritual of sea elephants (Mirounga Angustirostris) along the California coast. The mirounga rest together on the shore as social protection from violence when they are the most vulnerable. Only through these periods of dramatic change can they grow sleek new coats. The book’s journey begins with “Contagion,” revealing a world split in half like a calabash by a virus. “Beating, trembling,” a woman pleads for mercy while the poems confront the liminality of profound change. “A new cycle had begun / I would never be the same again.” The second section, Sangue, gives voice to mourning and rage. “when you murder the future of music / you are conjuring extinction.” Dysfunction on planet Earth reverberates from the street into the expansive galaxy. Refusing to normalize violence, the poet gathers war inside her own body to detonate it, then blows “tsunami-wind / to rattle clear the desks.” With the verve of Oya, the goddess of ancestral and radical change, the book claims ground for empathy and inter-being. The collection asks readers to imagine: “what if we were a part of a whole / that loved us without ceasing?” Catastrophic Molting breaks from inertia and seeks new ground. Our “foremothers greet the unborn” and are “betrothed to a story that doesn’t wish us dead.” Shimshon-Santo suggests that “stepping off might actually be, stepping in / turning away might actually be, turning toward.”
Maya Angelou’s unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters. Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to...
Kahlil Gibran—poet, philosopher, and artist—was born in Lebanon in 1883 but spent his final twenty years of life living in the United States. The three books that compose this audiobook are collections of Gibran's aphorisms, parables, an...
THE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED SPOKEN WORD POETRY COLLECTION FROM LANA DEL REY, VIOLET BENT BACKWARDS OVER THE GRASS“Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me in the...
Amanda Gorman’s powerful and historic poem “The Hill We Climb,” read at President Joe Biden’s inauguration “Stunning.” —CNN “Dynamic.” —NPR “Deeply rousing and uplifti...
The breakout poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda GormanFormerly titled The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, the luminous poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestsellin...
This program is read by the authorThe debut collection of poetry from Lili Reinhart, the actress and outspoken advocate for mental health awareness and body positivity.I seem to be your new favorite novel.One that keeps you up at night,turning my pa...
I go with the wind, people of Orphalese, but not down into emptiness; And if this day is not a fulfilment of your needs and my love, then let it be a promise till another day.” The beloved prophet Almustafa (meaning “The Chosen One&...
The first collection of poetry by Instagram sensation Atticus.Love Her Wild is a collection of new and beloved poems from the poet Atticus, who has captured the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of avid followers on his Instagram account @at...
Langston Hughes is a widely celebrated African American writer and important leader of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. Deeply inspired by the great poet Walt Whitman, Hughes’ own writings gave voice to the Black community in the American literar...