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City Tech Professor Publishes Evocative and Timely Book of Poetry

August 3, 2016

City Tech congratulates Professor Monique Ferrell, Department of English, on the publication of her book attraversiamo (NYQ Books, 2016), which translates from the Italian to "let us cross over." SPD Books named attraversiamo its 2016 Staff Pick for poetry. Janice Worthen of SPD says that "Ferrell builds a sweeping constellation in attraversiamo with long lines that are filled with the tough, the tender, the held breath, hiccup sob, and exhalation." This timely collection engages the reader in a poetic discussion about transformation and why survival, thoughtful consideration, and life matter.

attraversiamo, Ferrell's third collection of poetry, is an examination of a life in progress. It includes twenty-seven new poems that focus on the importance and impact of living within a skin that is both Black and female. Readers will find poetry that revisits local, national, and international tragedies; discussions about the power, "privilege," and pain of living as a woman in America; and an examination of what it means to survive, stand up, and willingly walk through to the other side.

"I chose the title attraversiamo because it best reflects where I am at this point in my life and in my writing," said Ferrell. "As much as I want to delve more deeply into expressing myself creatively, I'm also ready and willing to be free of the things I have no further use for. Now, more than ever, I want my fiction and poetry to bear witness to world occurrences-no matter how difficult. In doing so, I'm hoping to invite my readers into a conversation-one that allows us to 'cross over together' into a new and meaningful understanding."

Evocative of recent-as well as historical-events, Worthen says that Ferrell "takes on/takes in everything that plagues and everything that persists and everything that falls and rises. Each line weaves time and space as it rushes forward and crosses over barriers, and assumptions, and certainties... She writes the black body, the poor body, the female body, the god and giant body, the body that doesn't get to go home because of the violence of another body: 'bullets are the wind chimes that singsong our existence' (53)."

Other praise for attraversiamo includes Marta Effinger-Crichlow, author of Staging Migrations toward an American West: From Ida B. Wells to Rhodessa Jones, who says, "attraversiamo is a phenomenal book of poetry by one of the 21st century's most talented black female writers. Monique Ferrell's lyrical collection lingers in the ear with potent insightfulness and vulnerability. She magnificently beckons all generations to be still and read."

Joel Allegretti, editor of Rabbit Ears: TV Poems says, "'And it is stark,' Monique Ferrell tells us in the first poem of her new collection. She's right, of course. Everything is stark: desires, relationships, disappointments, even triumphs. We don't have the luxury of buffers; we always find ourselves negotiating sharp edges. There are no pretty pastel colors to ease us into a false sense of security; Monique describes an implacable world that's black, white, and gray. Her long lines have the urgency of breaking-news announcements, and throughout the collection she counsels the reader: 'keep your dignity,' she urges in one poem and reassures us in another that we aren't struggling in solitude ('it is hard going for us all'). This book is about how we respond to choices. We either can embrace its wise poems or ignore them. I choose the former."

Ferrell's work has also garnered attention from American Book Award winner and Patterson Literary Review editor Maria Mazziotti Gillan, who called Ferrell's book Unsteady "a powerful, passionate, blues song that teaches us about grief and loss and survival. It is full of muscular, energetic language and poems, and above all, it is unforgettable. Ferrell is a poet to be read over and over again. She pulls us into her world and makes us see it through her amazing eyes."

The book cover art for attraversiamo was designed by a City Tech student, Raciel Guzman, as was Ferrell's book cover art for Unsteady, which was designed by Patricia Persaud.

In addition to attraversiamo, Ferrell is the author of two books of poetry: Unsteady (NYQ Books, 2011), and Black Body Parts (Cross+Roads Press, 2002). Her writing has appeared in American Poetry Review, North American Review, Antioch Review, Cimarron Review, and New York Quarterly, among other creative writing journals, as well as the anthologies Token Entry, Out of the Rough, The Place Where We Dwell, and Rabbit Ears: TV Poems (NYQ Books, 2015).

Beyond her creative writing pursuits, Ferrell is co-founder of 2 Bridges Review, co-editor of the feminist criticism text Looking for the Enemy: The Eternal Internal Gender Wars of Our Sisters (Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2015), and author of scholarly publications on writing, race, gender equality, and pop culture issues including the forthcoming book The Seduction Deduction: Erotica, Intellect, and God-like Transformation in Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. She is also working on her first novel, Tuck, which focuses on the impact of mental illness and depression in African American families.

Professor Ferrell was City Tech's 2014 Scholar on Campus, an annual award honoring a faculty member who has demonstrated exceptional scholarly contributions to the community. She teaches literature, gender and sexuality studies, and composition at City Tech.