In Conversation with Poet, Jacqui Germain, author of "Bittering the Wound"

Join us for a conversation with Jacqui Germain (link), poet and author of "Bittering the Wound" (link), winner of the CAAPP Prize (2021).

In this program, St. Louis-based writer, journalist, and poet Jacqui Germain (link) will read from and discuss her debut collection of poetry, Bittering the Wound (link), a first-person retelling of the 2014 Ferguson uprising. This collection works to share the narrative of the event with more complexity, audacity, care, and specificity than public media accounts typically allow. Throughout the book, Germain also grapples with navigating the impacts of sustained protest-related trauma on mental health as it relates to activism and organizing.

The program is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Robie Madrigal, Pfau Library, at rmadriga@csusb.edu.

Thank you to the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences for sponsoring this event along with Pfau Library.

From the Publisher's website:

"Jacqui Germain’s debut collection, Bittering the Wound, is a first-person retelling of the 2014 Ferguson uprising. Part documentation, part conjuring, this collection works to share the narrative of the event with more complexity, audacity, care, and specificity than public media accounts typically allow. Throughout the book, Germain also grapples with navigating the impacts of sustained protest-related trauma on mental health as it relates to activism and organizing. The book also takes occasional aim at the media that sensationalized these scenes into a spectacle and at the faceless public that witnessed them.

"Bittering the Wound challenges the way we discuss, write about, and document political unrest. It offers fresh language and perspective on a historic period that reverberated around the world. Germain takes the reader through poems that depict a range of scenes—from mid-protest to post-protest—and personifies St. Louis with a keen and loving eye."

Get the book online here:

Series organizers: Dr. Mary Texeira (Sociology), Robie Madrigal (CSUSB Libraries), Stan Futch (President, Westside Action Group), Dr. Jeremy Murray (History), Cecelia Smith (CSUSB, BA/MA Graduate), Matt Patino (CSUSB MA Candidate). Click here to view previous panels in the Conversations on Race and Policing series (link).