sipèstisyon unflinchingly navigates generational trauma, migration, and spirituality. In this powerful debut, Haitian-American poet Mckendy Fils-Aimé examines wounds left by abuse, familial estrangement, and racial violence. Through the lens of Haitian superstitions, sipèstisyon explores the imperfect and non-linear nature of healing. These poems don't pretend that moving on is as simple as moving on. They know that mending a wound requires understanding its shape and origin and that confrontation is sometimes necessary. In each poem, sipèstisyon asks which is louder: the sound of our ache or the call to forgive?
"Watch me nourish & be nourishment." In sipèstisyon Mckendy Fils-Aimé invites us, to poems that are vivid, clear eyed, and always surprising with the abundance of gifts that's our life: "summer we shoplifted / too many bars from Pathmark," one piece begins as it goes on to give us wisdom that is memory. But this poet also knows, too well, that "sometimes we make art by archiving grief."
-Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic