Kindling : Writings on the Body

Aurora Levins Morales was born in rural Puerto Rico in 1954, of Puerto Rican and Ashkenazi Jewish parents. A lifelong feminist and radical, artist and activist, storyteller and historian, her 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 od 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. “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.” 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 Levins Morales’ 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.” Casimira Fuentes O’Neill, M.D.