Inclined to Riot

Inclined to Riot, KMA Sullivan’s second poetry collection, calls out and pushes against historical and interpersonal expectations which seek to contain, silence, erase the substance of a woman as anything other than mother, daughter, compliant lover. “I am cat-licked / wondering when durer’s lions will consume me / or perhaps inkless today / you press in / I am embossed / your anonymous mother / your 17th century prostitute.” This rejection of imposed identity and circumscribed possibility is offered in lyric, fluid, sensual images as the poet walks through art galleries across the United States and Europe responding to classical and contemporary art which attempt to tell her who she is. She does not relent: “even in fragments / mouth open, nostrils flared / I am nomad, moon goddess, carbon smear / if wings sprouted from my face / I would not fly back.” Instead, she emerges inclined to riot.