Synopses & Reviews
In her debut poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, Amber Flame spells out rituals in everyday decisions to hold on or let go. While questioning the role of elder, mentor, mother in the face of losing those figures, Flame details the unrelenting nature of parenthood through the cycles of grief. Her poems exuberantly rejoice in the brown skin of the female body, while soberly acknowledging the societal dangers of claiming such skin as home. Flame takes the reader through a visceral examination of the body's processes of both dying and continuing to live and the joy to be found while we do.
Review
"This is a book to keep close and return to, tender company in a time that wants to tear us apart." Elaina Ellis, Associate Editor at Copper Canyon Press
About the Author
An award-winning writer and performer, Amber Flame is also a singer for multiple musical projects. Flame's original work is published and recorded in many diverse arenas, including Def Jam Poetry, Winter Tangerine, The Dialogist, Split This Rock, Jack Straw, Black Heart Magazine, Redivider, and forthcoming from Sundress Publications, harlequin creature, and more. Since moving to the Bay Area, Flame works at an independent media company, This Week in Blackness, as well as a teaching artist for various theater companies and co-produces the Oakland Slam.