Build Yourself a Boat

Starred review from April 15, 2019
Felix's first poetry collection expresses a flourishing of intellect amid adverse complexities. Her control of line and structure exhibit an acrobat's skill at landing the reader right where she intended. To be Black in America has been a Sisyphean ordeal throughout this nation's history, and Felix's tough yet compassionate poems echo her desire to comprehend her place in that narrative. In a series titled Google Search Keywords, skeletal lines seem to fall onto the page, forming seemingly simple yet profound questions. Another recurring line of inquiry in this powerful collection centers on the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in a five-part series that begins with Zimmerman Testimonies: Day 1, each day chronicling the private and public travesty of justice. Felix also tackles economic injustice with finesse in Tonya Harding's Fur Coats, which opens and closes, "The thing about being poor / is that you spend your days / pointing"; and in which the poet asserts that poverty doesn't recognize skin color. Felix is doing what a poet can't help doing, telling us how it really is.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)