Funeral Diva

(Paperback)

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Description

First major publication by beloved NYC-based poet

A good comparable (older) title is American Dream by Sapphire

A very accessible and compelling "poetic memoir," in which Pamela Sneed traces her life from a small suburb in Massachusetts to Boston and then on to New York City. Along the way, she is embraced by the LGBTQ+ community, as well as artists and writers, cementing her own spot in these dynamic and often overlapping worlds.

Funeral Diva refers to the role Sneed played during a time when many of her friends were dying from AIDS. She became a voice for the community.

There is great interestespecially among younger readersin the 80s and 90s and the many important artists we lost then, and in the stories from those who survived.

There are a number of titles coming out this year that comprise, somewhat, an "AIDS Canon," including After Silence: A History of AIDS Through It's Images from UC Press (April 2020), as well as an anthology of writings edited by Sarah Schulman to be published by FSG in 2020.

The issues Sneed discusses are not relegated to the past though, as she address our current moment and black life in America, especially for women.

Writer whose work has been featured in NYT Magazine, New Yorker, Bomb, Time Out, Vibe

Well-known performer/poet/writer who is invited regularly as a keynote speaker and performer to major venues such at The Public Theater in NYC.

Rising reputation as a visual artist who is now often included in group shows at significant galleries and museums, including The Whitney, and the Brooklyn Museum, among others.

Accomplished teacher and mentor who is guest lecturer at major universities, including Yale, Columbia, Chicago School of the Art Institute, Pratt.

Artist-in-residence at Pratt University; Denniston Hill; and Poet-Linc, Lincoln Center Education.

She has received a Monica Hand, July 2018 scholarship for the Fine Arts Workshop in Provincetown.

Reviews

Praise for Funeral Diva:

"An absorbing and inherently engaging read from first page to last, Funeral Diva is one of those collections of thoughtful introspection and observation that will linger in the mind and"In closing, just in general, thank you for all your years of art and activism. I think the first time I saw you was in the '90s, on the PBS show In the Life, and I think that you might have even used the phrase 'funeral diva' on that show. I have a weird memory. But I remember seeing you on one of those episodes when I was probably in my late teens/early 20s, in Ohio. And I think that your work and the work of a lot of folks that you write about in Funeral Diva is important. It helped make me. So I just want to say thank you for your work over all those years. And the work that you continue to do for us. Thank you."Kenyon Farrow,The Body

"An absorbing and inherently engaging read from first page to last, Funeral Diva is one of those collections of thoughtful introspection and observation that will linger in the mind and memory long after the book itself has been finished and set back upon the shelf. Also readily available for personal reading lists in a digital book format, Funeral Diva is especially and unreservedly recommended for community, college, and university library LBGTQ collections and supplemental curriculum studies lists."Midwest Book Review

"Sneed's reflections provoke awareness of just how impactful our lives are upon each other, while also implicitly embracing poetry's central role in her life. . . .Funeral Diva: sure it's about Pamela Sneed, but the writing is for us all."Patrick James Dunagan,Rain Taxi Review of Books

"Funeral Diva grieves both the end and the continuation of the ills of the 1980s as well as the entangled persistence of pandemics. Sneed grieves the lives lost to HIV/AIDS and, now, to COVID-19."Tiana Reid, Poetry Magazine

"Funeral Diva is the tome for our awakening and for our survival."Erica Cardwell, writer, critic, and educator

"The memoirlike latest from poet, performer, and visual artist Sneed evokes a queer and Black coming-of-age story and its wider cultural resonance. Vividly capturing an array of formative relationships with friends, lovers, and family from the late 1980s and early 90s, Sneeds recalled experiences take the reader from the Boston suburbs and AIDS pandemic-era New York to Cape Coast Castle in Ghana. Essays such as History' and Ila,' reminiscent of writing by Hilton Als and influenced by Audre Lorde, cross-pollinate with poetic considerations of the present. Frequently, Sneeds tone is affectingly elegiac: 'And all those gay boys I met and worked with at a restaurant in Boston,/ who disappeared like thousands of bits of paper,/ wind just simply took' Yet just as often, this voice can be wry and lacerating: 'This is some high-wire sawed-in-half lady shit/ This is like some Hannah Arendt the banality of evil and/ the bureaucratization of homicide shit.' Sneeds speakers welcome complexity in poems like Bey ('I have to say I envy Beyonc/ That she gets to show up after the fact in New Orleans') and Survivor,' which traces the speakers uneasy feelings about daredevil swimmer Diana Nyad. In this book, bracing honesty reveals both the necessity and the costs of resilience."Publishers Weekly

"If you wonder what political agencyfeelslike, read this book. If you want to know what a broken heart feels like, read this book. If youre not sure how to express political agency in spite of a broken heart, read this book."Avram Finkelstein,After Silence: A History of AIDS Through its Images

"In form-bending poems, Sneed creates her own system of time and meaning in order to chronicle the past, to tell us the news, to save her own and others' lives."Rachel Levitsky,Womens Review of Books

"Opening with a couple of personal essays before moving into her poetic voice,Funeral Diva(City Lights Books, 2020) byPamela Sneedmovingly expresses her experience of her 1980s, NYC coming of age, including the effect of AIDS on the black queer community, as well as issues encompassing police brutality, queer rights, and the through line to the current COVID-19 pandemic."Gregg Shapiro, Baltimore OutLoud

"These compositions are necessary to the very soul of art itself. Gratitude to the author. All of us should read and thank this poet repeatedly."Gregg Bordowitz, author of General Idea: Imagevirus (The AIDS Project)

Author Bio

Poet, professor, and performer, Pamela Sneed is the author ofSweet Dreams,Kong,andImagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery. She was a Visiting Critic at Yale, and at Columbia University's School of the Arts, and is online faculty at Chicago's School of the Art Institute teaching Human Rights and Writing Art. She also teaches new genres at Columbia's School of the Arts in the Visual Dept. Her work is widely anthologized and appears in Nikki Giovanni's,The 100 Best African American Poems.

She has performed at the Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, MOMA, Poetry Project, NYU and Pratt Universities, Smack Mellon Gallery, The High Line, Performa, Danspace, Performance Space, Joe's Pub, The Public Theater, SMFA, and BRIC. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.