Viscera - by Felice Belle (Paperback)

About the Book

"Set in New York City, circa now, Viscera chronicles the pursuit of love and unassailable truth in a world designed to deny one's humanity. Our poet protagonist interrogates the cultural belief systems that bind and ultimately finds freedom in relentless self-definition. Inspired by pop culture patron saints and crime procedurals, Viscera investigates how to transfigure a fractured soul into a fully realized mosaic. From intimate whisper to wry conversation to Whitmanesque prophecy, Felice Belle's voice speaks to, and for, and somehow from us-as we are now-"never...more separate" and "never...more connected." These poems inhabit a frontier beyond free verse, yet thrum with an orality older than the alphabet. Viscera pays homage to the heart and cuts to the bone. It celebrates the multitudes within and the exquisite inherent risk in composing a life"--

Book Synopsis

Felice Belle's Viscera is map and misdirection, evidence and contradiction, free will and fate at the blackjack table. A celebration of the multitudes without and within. In a world that expects women to take care of everyone else except themselves, and find validation and value in such self-negation, Felice Belle's Viscera is an unflinching practice and declaration of defining oneself for oneself, with radical acceptance of the great, and challenging, consequences of doing so.

Review Quotes

Felice Belle is a writer of brevity and power. Viscera is Felice Belle talking to us, and it is urgent and beautiful. --Jessica Hagedorn

Whimsically masterful, moving, and profound, Viscera is a collection that captivates with every poem. Belle delves into the raw heart of magic and memory, pop culture and physics. Belle is a voice to be celebrated, who with every page turn breaks and then restores your ragged heart. --Jennifer Murphy, First Responder

I read the entire book with my hand clutching my chest. I laughed and I cried and I remembered people I've loved and lost and lost and loved--but that hand never left --Bassey Ikpi, New York Times Bestseller, I'm Telling the Truth but I'm Lying

The everyday and the ecstatic are both vividly rendered here, and the poems are vibrant odes to New York and to black music. Viscera is a collection built from an intoxicating range of references, beautifully constellated, delivered with intelligent soundplay and a powerfully beating heart. --Jamel Brinkley, Witness

Felice Belle is a visionary poet...Belle's poems are wickedly funny, full of sharp dialogue and precise imagery. There is a casual conversational elegance in Viscera that brings me so deeply close to a poet who is on top of her craft spilling truths from the mug of shattering heartbreak. --Regie Cabico, Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam Champion and Theater Artist

Felice Belle writes, "but i am an against-the-odds kind of girl" and then admits "i don't want the preacher / i want the pulpit." Indeed, these poems--riding the ambitious spirits of Prince, Drake, and Whitman--speak into the soul and inspire us all to stand taller, and braver too, especially in times of distress and heartache. Belle triumphantly reminds herself (and us) that "you were born for such a time as this." --Faisal Mohyuddin, The Displaced Children of Displaced Children

About the Author

Felice Belle consumes and creates stories to make sense of the world and her place in it. As a poet and playwright, she has performed at the Apollo Theater, Joe's Pub at the Public Theater, TEDWomen and TEDCity2.0. Her writing has been published in several journals and anthologies including Oral Tradition, Bum Rush the Page and UnCommon Bonds: Women Reflect on Race and Friendship. Playwriting credits include Other Women, Game On! and It Is Reasonable to Expect. She holds a B.S. in industrial engineering from Columbia University, an M.A. in individualized study from NYU Gallatin and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Long Island University. She is a lecturer in the low-residency M.F.A. program at St. Francis College in Brooklyn and chief storyteller for the global nonprofit Narrative 4.