Califia’s Daughter 2

1. My new book has just been released. Well it will be July 31. From today July 28-30 folks can get a per-publication discount by following the link.

Know ye that at the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California, very close to that part of the Terrestrial Paradise, which was inhabited by black women…They were robust of body with strong passionate hearts and great virtue. The island itself is one of the wildest in the world on account of the bold and craggy rocks.
From The Adventures of Esplandián (1510)
by Garcia Rodriguez de Montalvo

“This is a book of wisdom and whimsy, of mythology sprinkled with stardust. Every poem is a journey into a new desire fleshed out of history’s nightmares and our ancestors’ dreams. This is a devorah major Archana. Those who read tarot will know the power the Archana holds and how they govern. These poems rule a space between history and sea, relativity and dark matters, wombs and weaponry. I will pass these poems around at parties like hors d’oeuvres and tightly rolled joints. Some because they are delicious, others because they alter the state of consciousness. major is a free woman who wrote her own freedom papers in her own blood. Not beholden to some dead and despised rule book of ‘shoulda’ and ‘should nots,’ these poems speak a truth through art without the artifice of linguistic filigree in service to a valueless pedigree. Let these poems wash over you like sea foam and angels’ whispers. They are light and prickly and sweet and sacred. Savor and inhale them all.”

Toni Asante Lightfoot, Host, Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards

“All the dimensions of devorah major’s life and (yours) are here — from the ‘beginning before the beginning,’ galactic particles to the bebopness of our lives. She speaks of being, of becoming, of totality. Is it a journal, an investigation, the life philosophy of a great poet woman? Is it closer to love and color and everythingness beyond measure — intimacy, Big Mind and all-embracing love howling from the brave-bold island of Califia? Can we hold on? Or are we drifting? In this work, devorah charts the infinite music inside of us all. It is so good to read and in-vision devorah’s journeys. After more than four decades of knowing devorah — I bow to her tender, iridescent greatness.”

–Juan Felipe Herrera, U.S. Poet Laureate (2015-2017)

stardust
out of clay
they caution

dust to dust
they intone
from earth you came
and to earth you will return
they admonish
they remind us
we are mortal
and subject to death
yet insist on their eternals
demons and angels
paradise or purgatory
merely human
with a finite
measure of days
but we have
exploded as novas
burned through galaxies
explored far reaches of the milky way
ridden on the tails of comets
danced on the edge of asteroids
until
in a dizzying frenzy of passion
we fell
through the viscous ozone
past cooling clouds
to settle in the ooze
that feeds the ocean’s floor

it was there that we decided
to grow limbs and tongue
all the while holding inside
the truth of our origin
magnesium
calcium
iron
we are the stuff
that stars are made of
it is a scientific fact
a cosmic trust
in ignorance
and in knowing
we hold grains of the divine
inside ourselves

devorah major

 
and we always have