A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration of African American Women from Harriet Tubman to Sandra Bland

Through poetic memoir, biographical sketches, and archival black-and-white photographs, Hill’s first full-length collection gives voice to the history of black women in the United States who have undergone incarceration and oppression. To be bound suggests to be trapped; however, Hill’s poems illustrate how oppression can summon inner-strength, resistance, and revolution. While many of the freedom fighters spotlighted in the collection endured tragedy, Hill suggests it would be limiting to label these figures as tragic or doomed. Their narratives are not cautionary tales of defeat, but nuanced testaments of survival and ascension. In “Miz Lucille (an echo poem for Ms. Clifton),” Hill writes, “i stand up/ in the world that gift wrapped me for ruin/ i stand up/ and mark the script.” Hill’s deep admiration for poet and mentor Lucille Clifton serves as a touchstone, a way to rise above everyday struggles. In “Claudia Jones,” Hill envisions the activist and writer’s story as one of redemption: “How many/ ways did you write women? How / many ways did you right women?” For Hill, a bound woman overcomes oppression through her legacy. (Jan.)