The Fat Black Woman´s Poems: Virago 50th Anniversary Edition

´Beneath the folk rhythms and the lyrical simplicities, Nichols´s poems preach disquiet´ OBSERVER ´Not only rich music, an easy lyricism, but also grit, and earthy honesty, a willingness to be vulnerable and clean´ GWENDOLYN BROOKS ´Grace Nichols has wit, acidity, tenderness, any number of gifts at her disposal´ JEANETTE WINTERSON Celebrating five decades of the feminist publisher, each of the Five Gold Reads represents an iconic moment in Virago´s history, from the 1970s to today. A stunning collection of poems from Grace Nicholas, winner of the Queen´s Gold Medal for Poetry 2021 Nichols gives us images that stare us straight in the eye, images of joy, challenge, accusation. Her ´fat black woman´ is brash; rejoices in herself; poses awkward questions to politicians, rulers, suitors. In other sequences of this collection, Grace Nichols writes in a language that is wonderfully vivid yet economical of the pleasures and sadnesses of memory, of loving, of ´the power to be what I am, a woman, charting my own futures´.