A lifelong feminist and radical, artist and activist, storyteller and historian, Aurora Levins Morales' writing bridges the gap between the intimately personal and the global, between sensual experience and theory. In Kindling she explores the meanings of sickness and healing, suffering and pleasure, through the story of her own body, of all our bodies, of the body of the planet.
Kindling is a collage of prose poetry, poems, essays, performance pieces and memoir, exploring the rich complexity of living in a physical and social body. From 19th century bomba dancers to the environmental causes of epilepsy, from eugenics to the Cuban health care system, from the sexuality of the chronically sick and tired, to a broader interpretation of taking back the night, Levins Morales writes with passion and insight, self-revelation and global, historical perspective.
“What our bodies require in order to thrive, is what the world requires. If there is a map to get there, it can be found in the atlas of our skin and bone and blood...When I write about cancer and exhaustion and irritable bowels in the context of the treeless slopes of my homeland, of market driven famine, of xenoestrogens and the possible extinction of bees, I am tracing that map with my fingertips, walking into the heart of the storm that shakes my body and occupies the world... When I can hold the truth of my flesh as one protesting voice in a multitude, a witness and opponent to what greed has wrought, awareness becomes bearable, and I rejoice in the clarity that illness has given me.â€
from "Mountain Moving Day"
“Aurora’s writing is itself alchemy, balancing emotional nuance with rich historical context, simultaneously speaking in an intimate personal voice and for a collective we. She offers us vulnerable, power-filled lyricism that moves the audience to new understandings of their own lives as she claims her body’s pleasures and pain. Her writing moves me like no other.â€
Patty Berne, Cofounder and Artistic Director, Sins Invalid
“Medically, ‘kindling’ refers to the way bodies can be sensitized by small, repeated exposures to chemicals or electric shocks. Aurora’s essays and poems about the human body’s responses to oppression describe both the kindling of disease and of consciousness, fragments of tinder that ignite into a blazing awareness of our bodies as sites of struggle and transformation.â€
Casimira Fuentes O’Neill, M.D.
"Aurora's words are our medicine, an elixir for our collective bodies and selves. She keeps us connected to our roots of wellness inside and despite the so many moving parts of injustices against us. Through her story telling, exquisite and true, she gives us a powerful and tactile testimony to her and our reality, and our constant metamorphosis towards our liberation. Her words are inspiring and necessary."
Cara Page, Co-founder the Kindred Collective, Executive Director, Audre Lorde Project
