Syrup (Poetry), Marietta, GA
Syrup explores the myriad ways in which Black women have embraced radical self-definition in the face of the flatness of stereotype and dehumanizing consumption.
“‘Syrup’ contributes to the ongoing critical work of literary afterlives by relishing in the joy of self-definition and collective Black women’s memory of what has been both bitter and sweet about this life and the next.”
Cocoa M. Williams is a poet-scholar who received her PhD in African American Literary and Cultural Studies at Florida State University. Her research interests include African American women’s literature, black modernity, modern African American art, black digital humanities, museum studies, black film studies, and folklore. Her dissertation explores the impact of museum culture on African American arts and letters. Her poetry has been published in Dogwood, Ninth Letter, College Language Association Journal and december magazine. Her forthcoming publications include book chapters on Toni Morrison’s last novel God Help the Child for the Routledge Research Companion to Toni Morrison and on Primitivism in New Negro Aesthetics for the MLA Options for Teaching the Harlem Renaissance.