Seraphim by Angelique Zobitz
Reviewed by Kim Jacobs-Beck
Angelique Zobitz’s debut collection, Seraphim, centers its strong, direct gaze on Black womxn. Zobitz’s narrator is unflinchingly direct, writing about the complexities of mother/daughter relationships, sexual desire, and the net of family members and neighbors who supported, challenged, and raised her. Chicago hums in the background.
The title works thematically throughout the book, as Zobitz weaves the narrator’s Christian upbringing across the poems, including one about her own birth and naming: “My mama said, a punk // girl can dream of angels and knows when one manifests/ She said she looked into an angel’s eyes and claimed it as her own.” Religious struggling is present here too, as the narrator tries to reconcile what she has been taught with what she experiences: “How we snuck the pack of Camels. / That first puff of nicotine, / the burning eyes and the surprise of the burn— mingled with our briny tears and we all thought // we had sinned. Mortally.” These spiritually-themed poems are anchored in the body, with its unruly wants, needs, and cultural requirements.
The most startling poem in the collection is “Kink Therapy or an Alternate History of the World.” The narrator recalls her experience working as a Black dominatrix with white male clients: “I rode their backs the miserable beasts, made these men into collared horses who carried my burdens, dug my heels into their lathered flesh, shamed them into the ground. Are you so weak that you can’t carry the burden of one Black Woman?" Though Zobitz creates an inversion of domination, with the white man as the powerless one and the Black woman as the one in control, she still exists in a white supremacist culture that doesn’t see and honor her: “He sought absolution and I spoke reparations, I told him to let it go. And he came and I came to the conclusion, the opposite of a mirror still doesn’t have a name.” In contrast to the sex work power dynamic in this poem, the narrator of “After Listening to Megan Thee Stallion’s 'Thot Shit'" reflects on her enjoyment of sexual experience that is traditionally considered out of bounds for young women: “been held wide open split, molten and volcanic / spent myself between him, her, and them // felt alive and divine, / yes, I did that.” The sexual frankness of these poems and others in the book collectively ask readers to distinguish between the narrator’s authentic desires and modern culture’s obsession with performative sexuality.
Another memorable poem from this collection is “Mame Coumba Bang Speaks to the Revolution.” Zobitz weaves the gestation and birth of a daughter into the myth of a Senegalese river goddess. The poem’s incantatory rhythm perfectly supports its topics of motherhood and mythos: “You were born from legend dear child. / The fishermen learned of us first— // before plunder, before thirst, before / baptism, before suckling at breast // there was me and you nestled in me” (1-5). The goddess—who existed before the trauma of colonialism and Christianity left her people full of “thirst” for the nourishment of their culture that was taken from them—speaks a life of power and mystery into this child and her mother. The goddess blesses them with the example of “the river ready to take more than you need.”
Seraphim is a rich, engaging, and lively collection that intertwines the personal and the global through a clear, insistent voice. Zobitz’s insights into the rhythms of a young woman’s life that moves along a snaky line from her own birth to her daughter’s are powerful, and she sees the link between body and spirit, love and violence, sexuality as pleasure and sexuality as transgression. This is a book that stays with the reader long after it is finished.
The title works thematically throughout the book, as Zobitz weaves the narrator’s Christian upbringing across the poems, including one about her own birth and naming: “My mama said, a punk // girl can dream of angels and knows when one manifests/ She said she looked into an angel’s eyes and claimed it as her own.” Religious struggling is present here too, as the narrator tries to reconcile what she has been taught with what she experiences: “How we snuck the pack of Camels. / That first puff of nicotine, / the burning eyes and the surprise of the burn— mingled with our briny tears and we all thought // we had sinned. Mortally.” These spiritually-themed poems are anchored in the body, with its unruly wants, needs, and cultural requirements.
The most startling poem in the collection is “Kink Therapy or an Alternate History of the World.” The narrator recalls her experience working as a Black dominatrix with white male clients: “I rode their backs the miserable beasts, made these men into collared horses who carried my burdens, dug my heels into their lathered flesh, shamed them into the ground. Are you so weak that you can’t carry the burden of one Black Woman?" Though Zobitz creates an inversion of domination, with the white man as the powerless one and the Black woman as the one in control, she still exists in a white supremacist culture that doesn’t see and honor her: “He sought absolution and I spoke reparations, I told him to let it go. And he came and I came to the conclusion, the opposite of a mirror still doesn’t have a name.” In contrast to the sex work power dynamic in this poem, the narrator of “After Listening to Megan Thee Stallion’s 'Thot Shit'" reflects on her enjoyment of sexual experience that is traditionally considered out of bounds for young women: “been held wide open split, molten and volcanic / spent myself between him, her, and them // felt alive and divine, / yes, I did that.” The sexual frankness of these poems and others in the book collectively ask readers to distinguish between the narrator’s authentic desires and modern culture’s obsession with performative sexuality.
Another memorable poem from this collection is “Mame Coumba Bang Speaks to the Revolution.” Zobitz weaves the gestation and birth of a daughter into the myth of a Senegalese river goddess. The poem’s incantatory rhythm perfectly supports its topics of motherhood and mythos: “You were born from legend dear child. / The fishermen learned of us first— // before plunder, before thirst, before / baptism, before suckling at breast // there was me and you nestled in me” (1-5). The goddess—who existed before the trauma of colonialism and Christianity left her people full of “thirst” for the nourishment of their culture that was taken from them—speaks a life of power and mystery into this child and her mother. The goddess blesses them with the example of “the river ready to take more than you need.”
Seraphim is a rich, engaging, and lively collection that intertwines the personal and the global through a clear, insistent voice. Zobitz’s insights into the rhythms of a young woman’s life that moves along a snaky line from her own birth to her daughter’s are powerful, and she sees the link between body and spirit, love and violence, sexuality as pleasure and sexuality as transgression. This is a book that stays with the reader long after it is finished.
Kim Jacobs-Beck grew up in metro Detroit and now lives in Ohio. She is the author of two chapbooks, Torch (Wolfson Press) and Uneasy Suburbs (Kith Books, forthcoming). Her poems can be found in Museum of Americana, Great Lakes Review, West Trestle Review, Gyroscope, Apple Valley Review, and SWWIM, among others. She has reviewed poetry collections for Fence/Constant Critic, Southern Indiana Review, Barrelhouse, The Rumpus, Crab Creek Review and others. She teaches at the University of Cincinnati Clermont and is the founder and editor-in-chief of Milk & Cake Press.