Village

More about the book

Part poetry collection, part soundscape, Village uses dark humor and keen observation to explore the roots of grief and estrangement. In propulsive and formally inventive language, Latasha N. Nevada Diggs reckons with personal and communal loss and the origins of estrangement--where traumatic events expose uneven, nearly impossible attempts to forgive and reconcile. Asking "Who gets memorialized and why?" Diggs proposes new monuments, tears down classist tropes, and offers detailed instructions for her own international funeral celebrations (yes, plural). Village is an exploration of grief in its many forms: grief at the death of loved ones, grief at the failures of public institutions, and grief at disenfranchisement from family, from land, from care, and from self. From corners in Harlem through hardscrabble North Carolina fields, Diggs gets at the truth of living within the dystopia of poverty.