Where My Birthmark Dances

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About The Author
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Giving a voice or adding a layer of complexity to individuals who are at their lowest points, when we, the public, meet them, is Octavia McBride-Ahebee’s muse. Her writing is very much informed by the years she lived in various parts of Africa. Her poetry, for the most part, gives voice to women who historically have not been heard: African women, women in refugee camps, women who are victims of civil war, isolated, rural women who battle such health challenges as obstetric fistula and breast cancer. More increasingly, her poetry addresses the environmental devastation created by corporate entities in the name of development.
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McBride-Ahebee’s work has appeared in many journals and anthologies including Damazine; A Literary Journal of the Muslim World, Fingernails Across The Chalkboard: Poetry And Prose on HIV/AIDS From the Black Diaspora, Under Our Skin: Literature of Breast Cancer, Sea Breeze- A Journal of Contemporary Liberian Writing, The Journal of the National Medical Association, Art in Medicine Section and the Beloit Poetry Journal. Assuming Voices, a poetry collection, was published in 2003 by Lit Pot Press. Her newest collection of poetry, Where My Birthmark Dances, was published this summer- 2011- by Finishing Line Press.
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About the book
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Lillian Dunn, editor of Apiary Magazine, stated“The Ancient Romans used to call a person's creative spirit her "genius," and recognized the labor of setting it free as one of love and sacrifice. Octavia McBride-Ahebee's latest collection is just such a labor. Her poems depict human longing, love and dignity in the context of global inequality with fierce, uncompromising grace.
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As her characters speak, she creates indelible sensory images of loveliness and affection, profound misery and anger, letting each co-exist on the page. The resulting complexity of tone makes space for nuanced and compelling human voices that might otherwise be categorized as "victims" or "villains" of oppression. It takes the full use of genius to notice and capture these contradictions, and a deep social conscience to care so passionately about writing them down. This collection is one of McBride-Ahebee's "bighearted magnolia trees," its trunk scarred by the fire of sacrifice, its blossoms and branches so beautiful you don't want to leave their shade.”
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More about the author
http://www.omcbride-ahebee.blogspot.com/