Review: Seraphim

Experiences of Being a Black Woman
Review: Seraphim

Briar

Angelique Zobitz
Poetry
CavanKerry Press, pp. 112
Cost: $18.00

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​It’s an interesting experience, being a Black woman. Traversing this world born as two marginalized identities, not receiving support from either at the same time. When standing up for ourselves we are painted as aggressive, too passionate, perpetually angry, the villain. The experiences of being a woman differ globally but there seems to be a consensus that being a woman entails some sort of suffering at the hands of patriarchal society.

At least that’s how it is explored within white women’s spaces. Albeit true, when Black women come into these spaces to impart their own experiences being a woman coupled with being Black, suddenly we are shunned. Suddenly we don’t know what it’s like to be a woman because we are Black. What they refuse to realize is that our womanly experience is unique. It’s beautiful, it's painful, it’s joyous, it breeds community. This is explored within Angelique Zobitz’s poetry book Seraphim.

The book is separated into four sections, each section titled: you are your mother’s child, we sang the stars, imperfect yet unbroken, and lush and rain, bounty in lean which hone in on the experience of being a Black woman. Religious themes, a touch of salaciousness, devastation, and praise in all forms blend into a revitalizing cocktail to hook the reader into Zobitz’s world. 

The book begins with Black woman joy. Seraphims are mainly referenced in the Bible as the spokesman for God. In the poem “Sister/Seraphim,” the phrase “Inextinguishable Light” references that group of angels by likening the gathering of “Black barbies lit by gas station fluorescence / stunning—singing holy, holy, holy” to the praises sung by Seraphims to God (lines 2-3). Their joy and dancing in a gas station summoning community within their praises and their dance. The poem that follows is "Angelique, an Origin Story." This poem slightly subverts the divine gift of birthing a child and the immaculate conception. In that poem, Zobitz recalls her mom saying that she did not rely on any divine intervention:

my mama said I was blessed born. Said, she didn't need divine
messenger to convince her of what she carried, knew immediately

that I didn't need to be brought into this world by virgin or conceived
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as sacrifice
(lines 1-4)

Her mom did not need to be seen as Mary, her mom was just another woman who cherished the girl she was going to birth.

​As the collection progresses the poems start to touch on experiences Zobitz has gone through but can be applied to the struggles many Black people face, especially Black women. Pain, oppression, forced silence, many of these are markers of the experience of being a Black woman. Many of these markers have been assigned to Black women, therefore forcing them to play into the strong Black woman trope. A trope that forces them to not feel the pain, to look past and push through it, to then take care and coddle everyone else’s pain. Zobitz takes these markers and writes in a cathartic way. ​

The poems “Because You Need To Learn” and “Kink Therapy, or An Alternate History of the World” accompany each other in subject matter. “Because You Need to Learn” focuses on the pain Black women face because we are often defined and actualized by the pain we experience. The strong Black woman trope plays heavily into that. With all the pain we experience we are burdened to be strong and not break down. If we do, we are labeled as weak, crybabies, and ungrateful. We are never allowed to be soft or vulnerable, we have to be strong because we are seen as the rock and a tool people use to make themselves feel better. Not only does this poem display this phenomenon, it mirrors the punishment enslaved Black people would receive when they would try to run away, didn’t abide by the work burdened onto them, or didn’t listen to the plantation owners.

​“Kink Therapy, or An Alternate History of the World” continues with that idea by detailing a sado-masochistic BDSM scene where a white man begged to be absolved of all his guilt. He was bound, whipped, and degraded all in an attempt to have him experience a fraction of the pain Black women go through. However this poem is interpreted, literally or figuratively, the message is the same and it’s powerful.

The poem “Pyriscence” summarizes this experience beautifully. The Black Lives Matter movement spans back to 2013 as a response to Trayvon Martin’s death. Black people have known for centuries that this country does not care about us, however the handling of Trayvon Martin who was only 17 years old when he was murdered was a slap in the face. From then on, and even before then, the violent aggression towards Black people many times end in murder. Many of the victims are Black men and non-Black people that participate in this movement tend to look over Black women who are also victims. “Pyriscence” starts out with a litany of Black women who were victims of violence and police brutality, at least the names we know of. The stanza laments on how Black women are used again and again to start something, to be at the forefront of a movement with no protection. We get mowed down and then used again: “we are Black women, therefore we are often tough seed or tree or strange fruit or kindling” (line 7). Words in the repeated stanza are Blacked out with each repeat, to signify how insignificant we are made to be, even in death.

Black womanhood is not defined nor is it marred by pain. We are beautiful. We foster community. We harbor complexities and are just as talented and intelligent as our white counterparts. Zobitz's poems, particularly “Sermon: On the Sanctity of the Beauty Shop” and “Black Bodies,” demonstrate this perfectly. She says all the diversities that make us Black “remind me of my mother’s thighs bracketing, / Blue Magic, // and cocoa butter, Wild Growth, Mane n’ Tail, Luster’s” (lines 33-35). The community Zobitz expresses in Seraphim takes its time to connect with us, with Black women, to make us feel beautiful regardless of how society makes us feel.