Praise for Threed, This Road Not Damascus

I love the large of the all-embracing voice in Tamara J. Madison's work, its re-making of history, its daring, convincing belief in the spell of language that transforms, that enchants us into just beings.  

I love the myth-making, and the imaginative sweep of this work.  

I so love Tamara J. Madison's relentless pursuit of truth, how she shows us the possibility of honorable witness.  

How important it is, that possibility, especially in our dishonorable time.  

I love the music most of all, its litany, its gorgeous unfolding. This is a remarkable debut.  

--Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic and Dancing In Odessa 

 

 Tamara J. Madison gives us a story “between mantra, mojo, conjure” of women, women primordial. The telling is lush and pure. The power of the poetry in Threed, This Road Not Damascus comes from her miracle of inventing—the poems are what they are about.          

--Carol Frost, author of Entwined: Three Lyric Sequences and Honeycomb: Poems 

 

Threed, This Road Not Damascus, which takes its name from The Three-Breasted Woman and serves as muse for the poet, Tamara J. Madison, functions through multiplicity of voice, drawing on the innate strength Black women have long had to exhibit/endure, often in silence within patriarchal structures. Madison commits to the dangerous but beautiful task of poeting, which is often an insurrection against the dominate narrative for the sake of a more inclusive narrative. These poems ring with a level of craft and precision that creates an inner and outer lyric but are also deft in execution and redefinition regarding the role of the Black woman. In reading Threed, This Road Not Damascus, it is my hope that you, Dear Reader, will absorb these poems with great care and be consumed by the electricity of language, enlightened into a new understanding of Black womanhood. 

--Randall Horton, author of Pitch Dark Anarchy and Hook: A Memoir