the delicacy of embracing spirals
the delicacy of embracing spirals investigates the ways in which the personal narrative of Black queer womanhood can be expressed through, a radically human lens.
“mimi tempestt writes like a third testament in which God (or our understanding) finally matures. Like a painter longed for by a million canvasses. No peer. No rival. Just a cosmos enjoyed by friends; alive in the most exciting mind of our generation.”—Tongo Eisen-Martin, author of Blood on the Fog
With a visual sensibility that explodes across the page, the collection begins with microcosmic poems of personal struggle and spirals out to macrocosmic texts of social and political critique. The book culminates in a fantastic account of the staging of a play with life-threatening consequences.
mimi tempestt (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and daughter of California. She has a M.A. in Literature from Mills College, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Creative/Critical Ph.D. in Literature at UC Santa Cruz. Her new book is the delicacy of embracing spirals, published by City Lights in October 2023. mimi's first book, the monumental misrememberings, was published with Co-Conspirator Press//The Feminist Center for Creative Work in 2020. In 2021, she was selected for participation in the Lambda Literary Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices & Writers, and was a Creative Fellow at The Ruby in San Francisco. Her works can be found in Foglifter, Interim Poetics, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. A native of Los Angeles, she currently resides in Berkeley, CA.
