Synopses & Reviews
This riveting debut from poet Faylita Hicks is a reclamation of power for black women and nonbinary people whose bodies have become the very weapons used against them.
HoodWitch tells the story of a young person who discovers that they are “something that can & will survive / a whole century of hunt.” Through a series of poems based on childhood photographs, Hicks invokes the spirits of mothers and daughters, sex workers and widows, to conjure an alternative to their own early deaths and the deaths of those whom they have already lost.
In this collection about resilience, Hicks speaks about giving her child up for adoption, mourning the death of her fiancé, and embracing the nonbinary femme body — persevering in the face of medical malpractice, domestic abuse, and police violence. The poems find people transformed, “remade out of smoke & iron” into cyborgs and wolves, machines and witches — beings capable of seeking justice in a world that refuses them the option.
Exploring the intersections of Christianity, modern mysticism, and Afrofuturism in a sometimes urban, sometimes natural setting, Hicks finds a place where “everyone everywhere is hands in the air,” where “you know they gonna push & pull it together. / Just like they learned to.” It is a place of natural magick — where someone like Hicks can have more than one name: where they can be both dead and alive, both a mortal and a god.
Review
"In her tremendous debut, Faylita Hicks composes fresh poems out of old photographs, dealing with the deeply personal topics of adoption, partner loss, and nonbinary identities." Bustle
Review
"HoodWitch examines what power looks like when reclaimed by Black women and nonbinary people. Considering the unique path of survival that queer Black people have to claim in our society, often alone, there’s something comforting about reading stories of resilience." Bitch
Review
"What an exhilarating collection Faylita Hicks's HoodWitch is....Visceral, riveting, and somehow both heartbreaking and empowering. The words lick at you from its pages like potent flames." Jami Attenberg, author of "All This Could Be Yours"
About the Author
Faylita Hicks (pronouns: she/her/they) is a queer writer and the Editor-in-Chief of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada University, and has received fellowships and residencies from Lambda Literary, Jack Jones Literary Arts, Tin House, Right of Return, and the Vermont Studio Center. Hicks's debut poetry collection HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019) is a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award and the Julie Suk Award. Her poems and essays have been featured in Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review, Poetry Daily, Slate, Longreads, Huffpost, Texas Monthly, Texas Observer, TheRumpus, Cincinnati Review, Adroit, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere.