The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony
Winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony is based on a Somali insult: jiko muufo. Translated literally as kitchen flatbread, the insult criticizes those women who love domestic work so much that they happily watch bread rise.
This collection of poems examines the varied ways women navigate gender roles, while examining praise for success within roles where imagination about female ability is limited. The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony is about love and longing, divorce, distilled desire, and all the ways we injure ourselves and one another.
