Safia Elhillo on Vulnerability and Anger in Girls That Never Die
b'The poet Safia Elhillo first found her voice onstage, performing in youth poetry slams in Washington, D.C., where she grew up, the child of Sudanese immigrants. She published her first collection in 2017, and in 2021 her novel in verse, \\u201cHome Is Not a Country,\\u201d was long-listed for the National Book Award. She\\u2019s now out with a new collection, \\u201cGirls That Never Die,\\u201d which she characterizes as her most personal and vulnerable work yet. It responds to some of the backlash she received online after her earlier work was published. \\u201cBefore this book, I think I had really clear rules for myself about what I was and was not allowed to write poetry about. And my body was one of the things that I was not allowed to write poetry about,\\u201d Elhillo tells Dana Goodyear. \\u201cI think I really had to sit down and dismantle this idea that if I was polite enough, respectful enough, modest enough, quiet enough, silent enough\\u2014that nobody would ever want to do me harm.\\u201d'