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Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals
Undrowned is a book-length meditation for social movements and our whole species based on the subversive and transformative guidance of marine mammals. Our aquatic cousins are queer, fierce, protective of each other, complex, shaped by conflict, and struggling to survive the extractive and militarized conditions our species has imposed on the ocean. Gumbs employs a brilliant mix of poetic sensibility and naturalist observation to show what they might teach us, producing not a specific agenda but an unfolding space for wondering and questioning. From the relationship between the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale and Gumbs’s Shinnecock and enslaved ancestors to the ways echolocation changes our understandings of “vision” and visionary action, this is a masterful use of metaphor and natural models in the service of social justice.
174 pages, Paperback
First published November 17, 2020
About the author
Alexis Pauline Gumbs
24 books440 followersAlexis Pauline Gumbs is a poet, independent scholar, and activist. She is author of Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity and coeditor of Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines and the Founder and Director of Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind, an educational program based in Durham, North Carolina.
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February 3, 2021Quickly adding because people asked: I loved this book and it was exactly what I needed at this point in life (even though I am much more of a marine invertebrates person :) ). A text full of heart and life. I hope to add more detailed comments soon!!!
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Source of the book: Bought with my own money (preorder directly from the press, it came with a pin!)
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Source of the book: Bought with my own money (preorder directly from the press, it came with a pin!)
September 8, 2020
Undrowned is an intriguing title. Alexis Gumbs has a wonderfully deep knowledge of sea mammals, and this book is meant to be anthropomorphic; how those mammals duplicate or inspire human equivalent activities. How we can or maybe even should see ourselves in the activities of sea mammals. It doesn’t work.
The 20 short chapters take activities and aspects of sea mammals and project them onto humans. For example, Gumbs talks about dorsal fins and how they aid in stability for dolphins and other sea mammals. She says she would like to have a dorsal fin stabilizing her life. It is dorsal fin envy, but so what?
Gumbs is very up front about herself: queer, black, feminist, Caribbean. I really wanted her to leverage those things into an entirely new perspective. But it didn’t work. Even when she specifically sets up a chapter on feminism or race, the comparison to the sea mammal world is empty. Nothing she says doesn’t also apply to everyone. Or to no one. The connections to being black, queer and feminist are never made, unless you count the dolphins who buddy up with a same sex friend for life. Best friend for life is not evidence of sea mammals being queer or serving as a lesson for humans.
For a brief moment, it appeared she was going to dive deep: “Legally and narratively, our society encourages small, isolated family units and anti-social state reluctant to care.” But she leaves that thought dangling and does not elaborate. Some sea mammals collectivize. Some mothers adopt orphans and even develop lactation for them. And so…?
Her knowledge of the very many different kinds of dolphins alone is inspiring. The facts she puts on display about how they live is a wonder. But she never leverages them into being black, feminist or queer. While knowledge of sea mammals is profound, her display of societal ills is naïve by comparison. And for all the physical descriptions, the book offers not a single image to show readers what she is referring to.
Instead, there is a lot of the word love. Gumbs loves readers and she wants them to know that, firmly, explicitly and repeatedly. And unnecessarily.
I came away not knowing what the point of it all was, and I cannot say who the book is directed to. To me, that is a failure.
David Wineberg
February 15, 2021
I finished reading Undrowned and it was phenomenal.
Undrowned is a Black feminist perspective on what marine mammals have taught the author.
Throughout the book connections are made to the atrocity of enslavement via the space of the Middle Passage (Atlantic Ocean) and the normalized logic of colonialist and supremacist ideologies...
The author focuses much on how non-human mammals such as otters, whales, dolphins, seals, and sea lions have been affected by ecocidal ideologies that are rooted in colonialism, white supremacy, and capitalism. But, the book is not depressing or hopeless...
Instead, the book is focused on how these marine are our "brethren"; that they teach us better ways to fight, resist, be incognito at times, and struggle for the right to exist and to "breath"--- against supremacy, domination, capitalism, and exploitation... And throughout the book, it's implied again and again---> What can us [Black folk and others so deeply impacted by colonialism and enslavement or genocide] learn from these marine mammals so we can heal, be resilient, adapt, resist and eventually be whole again for our healthy futures?<---(not her quote but this is my own reflect). So, this is what I personally got out of her text: That there is hope and deep lessons to be learned from these mammals to teach us to continue to fight to be authentically ourselves, to breath, and do it unapologetically....
This book was absolutely brilliant, meditative, and deep. As a matter of fact, it is the first fusion of black feminism and marine conservation/liberation literature I have ever read that makes the connections to animal liberation for marine mammals AND racial justice/liberation for Black folk throughout the globe who have been affected by white supremacist-capitalist-colonialist "order of things" over the last 500 years; that it's all part of the same toxic system the is destroying the right to fully thrive for all beings.
Undrowned is a Black feminist perspective on what marine mammals have taught the author.
Throughout the book connections are made to the atrocity of enslavement via the space of the Middle Passage (Atlantic Ocean) and the normalized logic of colonialist and supremacist ideologies...
The author focuses much on how non-human mammals such as otters, whales, dolphins, seals, and sea lions have been affected by ecocidal ideologies that are rooted in colonialism, white supremacy, and capitalism. But, the book is not depressing or hopeless...
Instead, the book is focused on how these marine are our "brethren"; that they teach us better ways to fight, resist, be incognito at times, and struggle for the right to exist and to "breath"--- against supremacy, domination, capitalism, and exploitation... And throughout the book, it's implied again and again---> What can us [Black folk and others so deeply impacted by colonialism and enslavement or genocide] learn from these marine mammals so we can heal, be resilient, adapt, resist and eventually be whole again for our healthy futures?<---(not her quote but this is my own reflect). So, this is what I personally got out of her text: That there is hope and deep lessons to be learned from these mammals to teach us to continue to fight to be authentically ourselves, to breath, and do it unapologetically....
This book was absolutely brilliant, meditative, and deep. As a matter of fact, it is the first fusion of black feminism and marine conservation/liberation literature I have ever read that makes the connections to animal liberation for marine mammals AND racial justice/liberation for Black folk throughout the globe who have been affected by white supremacist-capitalist-colonialist "order of things" over the last 500 years; that it's all part of the same toxic system the is destroying the right to fully thrive for all beings.
November 15, 2020
My immediate impression upon beginning to read Alexis Pauling Gumbs', "Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals," was that I could tell that the author is a poet. I have read a lot of books which focus on the intersections or overlaps with human experiences and that of other animals. Most of these come from a scientific or critical theory standpoint, which is a very different place than where this book comes from. Gumbs' poetic and abstract approach to discussions of human and marine mammal experiences is one I had not encountered before. I like that she mentions not being objective in the introduction as it is true that nothing humans ever do is completely objective. I share her criticisms of how scientists use "language of deviance and denigration" in studies of other animals as a good example of this. While scientific approaches take a great many measures to promote a more objective approach and this should definitely never be ignored, these things are often filtered through a subjective lens- one in which many human scientists- especially those invested in captive animal exploitation/research- create a narrative which reinforces human supremacy over other species. Don't let my paragraph here fool you, though. This is not really a book about science or why animal liberation is important. It is a book of meditations that are inspired by facts the author has learned about marine mammals. I admit, I didn't fully realize just what a woo woo sort of book this was going to be. It's clear in the blurb that it's a meditation, not a science or theory book though, so that's on me.
Although I have read and enjoyed Gumbs' writings in a variety of books and places, I did not fully realize just how much she has been involved in creating. She is, "a founding member of UBUNTU... a member leader of Southerners on New Ground, member of the founding vision circle of Kindred Healing Justice, a founding member of... Warrior Healers Organizing Trust, and a member of SpiritHouse," and other projects and initiatives. Having followed some of these and learning more about others, this is quite the impressive resume.
Undrowned is divided into different chapters, each of which is its own meditation. While the author claims to have written the book so that the reader can read non-linearly or skip around, I decided to read it cover to cover. The experience was interesting and I imagine someone choosing to take more time with it or use it as a meditation-a-day/week/etc text would have a different experience. So there's a bit of versatility there.
Gumbs refers to herself as a "marine mammal apprentice" and admits to being a beginner regarding the topic. This will show at times to those of us who have read a bit about these animals already. But, as a result, it simultaneously makes the book accessible to a much wider audience rather than limiting it to PhDs as some books focused on certain topics do. Gumbs also uses fairly accessible language in this book which also makes it able to be read more widely. I will admit, a lot of this book was not really my thing. I am not a spiritual person, I don't do meditations, etc but there was also a lot in this book that appealed to me- particularly the "End Capitalism" chapter and others with a more praxis sort of focus.
My criticism of Gumbs work would be that she tends to create a hierarchy of animals in a way that I don't think she intended. She refers to "advanced marine mammals" in the beginning of the book, but never really defines what this means. Many of the lessons that she urges the reader to learn from marine mammals can also be taught by a great many fish species which make up a far larger portion of marine life than mammals. (I recommend the book "What a Fish Knows" if you want a better understanding of this.) But, fishes are treated- likely unintentionally- as disposable objects in some parts of the book. The book's focus is marine mammals, so I am not saying that the book should have focused on fishes. I'm saying that it falls into the same trap many humans' love of other animals falls into- it becomes limited to or more focused on animals humans (incorrectly) think are more like us and animals not traditionally used for food in the west. For instance, in discussing the commercial fishing industry and why it must end along with capitalism, the reasoning is mostly based on how it accidentally kills marine mammals and how it affects the environment for humans and marine mammals. The prime victims of the fishing industry- fishes by the trillion plus every year- are a side note if that. Even from the perspective of only caring about marine mammals and humans, destroying the fishes destroys both of those people and we're already looking at saltwater fish extinction by 2048 if we keep going the way we are going. There is also a bit of a noble savage trope where she positively discusses the owner of one of the largest commercial fishing operations in their country being Maori and their taking a couple welfare steps for marine mammals. This comes across a bit as if Maori people are monolithic and that saving a few dolphins somehow vastly separates this capitalist venture from that of other commercial fishing operations- even if said commercial fishing is harming the most marginalized of Maori people. She does mention her conflict in this and struggling to know when to give credit, so I get what she was trying to do there. But, I really hoped for a more nuanced look at marine life rather than the same old anthropocentric binary of the minority of "advanced" marine life vs everyone else.
So, all of that criticism is to say that this is definitely not an animal liberation book or a scientific book. I am not saying Alexis Pauline Gumbs is not for animal liberation personally, (I actually think she might be ethically vegan, but I am not sure.) I am just saying that this book is a meditation book for humans inspired by, and is sometimes a brief ode to, marine mammals. The focus is on the reader. Nonetheless, I am glad to have read this book. It tackled these topics in new ways I have not seen before and that is always a good thing. I think fans of Gumbs work- both poetry and activism- will find something they enjoy and learn from within it.
This was also posted to my blog.
Although I have read and enjoyed Gumbs' writings in a variety of books and places, I did not fully realize just how much she has been involved in creating. She is, "a founding member of UBUNTU... a member leader of Southerners on New Ground, member of the founding vision circle of Kindred Healing Justice, a founding member of... Warrior Healers Organizing Trust, and a member of SpiritHouse," and other projects and initiatives. Having followed some of these and learning more about others, this is quite the impressive resume.
Undrowned is divided into different chapters, each of which is its own meditation. While the author claims to have written the book so that the reader can read non-linearly or skip around, I decided to read it cover to cover. The experience was interesting and I imagine someone choosing to take more time with it or use it as a meditation-a-day/week/etc text would have a different experience. So there's a bit of versatility there.
Gumbs refers to herself as a "marine mammal apprentice" and admits to being a beginner regarding the topic. This will show at times to those of us who have read a bit about these animals already. But, as a result, it simultaneously makes the book accessible to a much wider audience rather than limiting it to PhDs as some books focused on certain topics do. Gumbs also uses fairly accessible language in this book which also makes it able to be read more widely. I will admit, a lot of this book was not really my thing. I am not a spiritual person, I don't do meditations, etc but there was also a lot in this book that appealed to me- particularly the "End Capitalism" chapter and others with a more praxis sort of focus.
My criticism of Gumbs work would be that she tends to create a hierarchy of animals in a way that I don't think she intended. She refers to "advanced marine mammals" in the beginning of the book, but never really defines what this means. Many of the lessons that she urges the reader to learn from marine mammals can also be taught by a great many fish species which make up a far larger portion of marine life than mammals. (I recommend the book "What a Fish Knows" if you want a better understanding of this.) But, fishes are treated- likely unintentionally- as disposable objects in some parts of the book. The book's focus is marine mammals, so I am not saying that the book should have focused on fishes. I'm saying that it falls into the same trap many humans' love of other animals falls into- it becomes limited to or more focused on animals humans (incorrectly) think are more like us and animals not traditionally used for food in the west. For instance, in discussing the commercial fishing industry and why it must end along with capitalism, the reasoning is mostly based on how it accidentally kills marine mammals and how it affects the environment for humans and marine mammals. The prime victims of the fishing industry- fishes by the trillion plus every year- are a side note if that. Even from the perspective of only caring about marine mammals and humans, destroying the fishes destroys both of those people and we're already looking at saltwater fish extinction by 2048 if we keep going the way we are going. There is also a bit of a noble savage trope where she positively discusses the owner of one of the largest commercial fishing operations in their country being Maori and their taking a couple welfare steps for marine mammals. This comes across a bit as if Maori people are monolithic and that saving a few dolphins somehow vastly separates this capitalist venture from that of other commercial fishing operations- even if said commercial fishing is harming the most marginalized of Maori people. She does mention her conflict in this and struggling to know when to give credit, so I get what she was trying to do there. But, I really hoped for a more nuanced look at marine life rather than the same old anthropocentric binary of the minority of "advanced" marine life vs everyone else.
So, all of that criticism is to say that this is definitely not an animal liberation book or a scientific book. I am not saying Alexis Pauline Gumbs is not for animal liberation personally, (I actually think she might be ethically vegan, but I am not sure.) I am just saying that this book is a meditation book for humans inspired by, and is sometimes a brief ode to, marine mammals. The focus is on the reader. Nonetheless, I am glad to have read this book. It tackled these topics in new ways I have not seen before and that is always a good thing. I think fans of Gumbs work- both poetry and activism- will find something they enjoy and learn from within it.
This was also posted to my blog.
March 10, 2021
I knew from the title that this was a book I had to read, and it was even more magical than I expected. I read slowly, little bits at a time, leaving time for thinking and writing and exploring in between, including reading about the marine mammals. I feel like the book's description -- of a work "producing not a specific agenda but an unfolding space for wondering and questioning" -- is really true, and I am left with much to think about. I found myself underlining, drawing the occasional heart in the margin, as the questions that the book raises made their way into my journalling + other reflective practices -- it's a book I'll return to. Gumbs' writing is beautiful, poetic -- it's my first time reading her work but it definitely will not be the last.
February 6, 2021
Have you ever fallen in love with a writer's prose like a coup de foudre? When I heard Alexis Pauline Gumbs read an excerpt of her work at the American Studies Association conference a few years ago, I was awestruck. When I heard that she was coming out with a book of Black feminist reflections, it felt like kismet. I was obsessed with cetaceans in middle school, manatees in particular; I even thought I might become a marine biologist. This book did not disappoint in its combination of ecological observation, Black feminist meditation, and gorgeous prose. Perhaps my favorite thing about the book was her play with address, her use of the second-person, writing to the reader like her lover (or treating her lover as her reader). Gumbs does not shy away from the world-shattering effects of racial capitalism and its extractive practices. Within this destructive culture, she insists on the care of self, other, and community. The book concludes with mindfulness and action prompts. Advocating for the "school" as opposed to the nuclear family, Gumbs reminds us in a book written before the pandemic of all that is lost in isolation. She takes animals as teachers, and while they often function metaphorically, she also takes their embodied lives and kinship practices as a source of interspecies pedagogy, which I love.
November 5, 2021
I wanted to like this book. I wanted to get it. However, this book is probably going to be the lowest-rated for me of the year.
The writing itself was beautiful, but I couldn't get beyond the amount that Gumbs romanticized nature to serve her philosophy instead of the other way around. This was not a nature appreciation piece. This was a poet rewriting and misrepresenting nature for her own benefit. She says over and over that these animals are "teaching us a lesson" to the point that it starts sounds like her care for these animals depends solely on what they can do for her, and it's that kind of thinking that got us here in the first place.
An archivist recently told me that scholarship surrounding social issues that uses more than it gives is at best useless and at worst actively harmful. While I would not call this text harmful, I would say that it does nothing to serve the creatures that she uses.
The writing itself was beautiful, but I couldn't get beyond the amount that Gumbs romanticized nature to serve her philosophy instead of the other way around. This was not a nature appreciation piece. This was a poet rewriting and misrepresenting nature for her own benefit. She says over and over that these animals are "teaching us a lesson" to the point that it starts sounds like her care for these animals depends solely on what they can do for her, and it's that kind of thinking that got us here in the first place.
An archivist recently told me that scholarship surrounding social issues that uses more than it gives is at best useless and at worst actively harmful. While I would not call this text harmful, I would say that it does nothing to serve the creatures that she uses.
May 9, 2021
I'm actually still reading this book, not quite halfway through yet, but I love it. And I'm recommending it to friends. It is such a profoundly encouraging, thoughtful and deeply useful text for the moments we are living through. I'm thankful to Prof. Gumbs for this beautiful work. Highly recommended! And a perfect read on this Mothers Day!
January 17, 2021
This was beyond five stars. A necessarily urgent guide to loving, intimacy, care and nurturance culture, to refusing capitalism and rethinking relation. As a white able-bodied woman living on stolen land, stolen water, I will return to this guide again and again to actively think about where I am, how I how I can practice unlearning, listening deeply, and intervening in structures of harm and oppression. Gumbs offers so much here in the way she relates to the marine mammals who move within this text but are in no way captured, known, or put on display. They are teachers, lovers, kin, and mothers.
September 11, 2022
A fucking fantastic book that i will recommend everyone read, especially those in STEM. So, so good. Beautifully written, relevant, moving, and includes dolphin/whale/seal facts! What is better than that. Already planning on reading it a second time after i force everyone around me to read it.
June 18, 2021
"What if we could release ourselves from an internalized time clock and remember that slow is efficient, slow is effective, slow is beautiful?"
August 17, 2023
one of my favorite moments of this summer was lying on malia's blanket while el and olivia read this book aloud to me. i don't know the last time i had heard the word love said aloud so many times. often when a word gets repeated so much, it begins to lose its power but this book is continually strong in its lovingness. which was only increased by having people i love read and breathe it to me. even when i finished it on my own, i felt this force/energy of love flooding from it. which i think is the core of Black feminism. & what is going to change the world. the capaciousness and power of alexis pauline gumbs' love is so beautiful. i love how the "you" in her i love yous shifts and flows throughout the book to hold marine mammals, human mammals, me the reader, Black women, ancestors, all of us. and the instability of gumbs' "i" - is she the writer or a marine mammal, or something in between? her positionality is constantly flowing. in this way, she is modeling a sort of (interspecies) love that becomes a becoming. which is actually an interesting layer to the tree anthropomorphism debate, & to the erotics of rot interspecies porousness argument....hm....overall this book is a beautiful model for change that i will keep coming back to. i think i could flip open to any page and find something i need to hear.
"there is something i'm going to tell you, but first i have to make a language for myself and the place i live that doesn't steal me from my purpose. will you wait? there is something i'm going to tell you, just let me open up my mouth. see if i sing." (this is literally a prayer!!!!!! this whole book is a ritual!!)
"there is something i'm going to tell you, but first i have to make a language for myself and the place i live that doesn't steal me from my purpose. will you wait? there is something i'm going to tell you, just let me open up my mouth. see if i sing." (this is literally a prayer!!!!!! this whole book is a ritual!!)
July 7, 2022
Offers a new way of thinking about non human life in a non anthropomorphic way that I'm sure will be replicated. Plus is genuinely fun, multilayered, and a kind of primer to modern Black feminist theory at the same time? Alexis, Alexis, teach us more ! Teach us to breathe !
February 11, 2023
I came to this book with some skepticism. Sometimes I get excited about books like this only to discover that they've taken simplified factoids about other species and turned them into just-so stories that continue to center humans. But then I read this and -- I'll be honest -- cried at every page.
What makes this book work is that Gumbs is paying close and respectful attention to other species. She usually doesn't generalize them, romanticize them, or twist them into lessons. Yes, there are a few moments that feel a little like a stretch (a school of fish doesn't really have anything to do with human educational institutions, for instance). But fundamentally Gumbs is here to express gratitude and love for other kinds of beings. We have things to learn from all of them, but they aren't here for us.
And I just appreciate reading someone who can care about human justice and the well-being of other species at the same time. Often when I'm reading about problems and solutions, I feel like I have to turn off half of my heart. It was good to be whole-hearted for a while here with this book.
I do recommend only reading a bit at a time.
What makes this book work is that Gumbs is paying close and respectful attention to other species. She usually doesn't generalize them, romanticize them, or twist them into lessons. Yes, there are a few moments that feel a little like a stretch (a school of fish doesn't really have anything to do with human educational institutions, for instance). But fundamentally Gumbs is here to express gratitude and love for other kinds of beings. We have things to learn from all of them, but they aren't here for us.
And I just appreciate reading someone who can care about human justice and the well-being of other species at the same time. Often when I'm reading about problems and solutions, I feel like I have to turn off half of my heart. It was good to be whole-hearted for a while here with this book.
I do recommend only reading a bit at a time.
April 20, 2022
5/5 stars
This book is so fucking good. Reading it again has only confirmed what I knew to be true: Alexis Pauline Gumbs is wondrous. A lovely writer, combining (colonialist) science with truth and emotion... in a way I cannot describe. It's beautiful. Please read this and take deep breaths while doing so. Go slow. You won't regret it. Also, support AK Press. They do such good work!
This book is so fucking good. Reading it again has only confirmed what I knew to be true: Alexis Pauline Gumbs is wondrous. A lovely writer, combining (colonialist) science with truth and emotion... in a way I cannot describe. It's beautiful. Please read this and take deep breaths while doing so. Go slow. You won't regret it. Also, support AK Press. They do such good work!
December 5, 2021
The most impactful book I’ve read in 2021. This one took me a long time to get through even in its short length because of all the truths present in it. I’d encourage a pen and paper around to write down what sticks - and when you get teary - this is a deeply personal book that reads like a letter to the reader. I’ll come back to this one a lot.
January 12, 2022
No doubt the best book I read in 2021. I made a point to read only one section each morning. I doubt there is a better way to read it. After two years of living in the midst of the Pandemic this was deeply needed and a great tool to bring into the new year.
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February 10, 2023slay
April 28, 2024
This is where marine mammal science meets poetry. Some of the poetic writing was lost on me, but I enjoyed learning new facts and hearing from a different point of view. I thought I knew a lot about marine mammals, and maybe I do, but this book gave me new perspective. I would encourage any other marine mammal nerds to give this book a try, especially if you’re also a scientist, because it challenges the objective and anti-anthropomorphic thinking that we are trained to do. I read this with my work colleagues and we had such a fun discussion but also shared many realizations that came out of it.
September 23, 2023
“Grazie, mie amate, per il coraggio che avete dimostrato vivendo libere in spazi di costrizione. In spazi fangosi. Grazie per aver scelto di fare non ciò che potevate ma ciò che dovevate. Grazie per insegnarci la differenza tra privilegio e coraggio. Fuga e trascendenza. Reazione e rivoluzione. La vostra perseveranza disvela un'alternativa eterna, portata dalle bottiglie e dai delfini dal muso a bottiglia. Sangue e respiro. Messaggio onorato. Messaggio ricevuto.“
May 23, 2022
An antidote to omnicide. Alexis Pauline Gumbs models a way to talk about interconnectedness and the shared struggle against systems which threaten all life (human and nonhuman) without reductiveness or generalizing.
"What's the problem? First of all, freedom is a basic need and a divine imperative. As former poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith said on her daily poetry podcast The Slowdown, 'All animals allowed to live free and wild protect something holy in the world.' I agree. All animals. Including us." (page 88)
"...And that I honor you for continuing to be who you were, no matter what they tried to turn you into, despite their hunting every night. And say I love you with a sweetness, not of sugar but of salt that won't dissolve. I love you with a Black outliving empires in your name." (page 140)
"What's the problem? First of all, freedom is a basic need and a divine imperative. As former poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith said on her daily poetry podcast The Slowdown, 'All animals allowed to live free and wild protect something holy in the world.' I agree. All animals. Including us." (page 88)
"...And that I honor you for continuing to be who you were, no matter what they tried to turn you into, despite their hunting every night. And say I love you with a sweetness, not of sugar but of salt that won't dissolve. I love you with a Black outliving empires in your name." (page 140)
March 2, 2021
I LOVE the idea of taking lessons from the natural world - in this case, marine mammals - and interweaving them with lessons that we as people can take away, especially messages focused on how to better be in community with one another. For me, Gumbs doesn't quite capture this difficult-to-achieve goal (but then again, maybe I'm just unfairly comparing her to adrienne maree brown, who could teach a masterclass on this subject). But overall, still loved the concept and many of the ideas.
February 11, 2022
Beautiful from beginning to end. It is meant to be read slowly and absorbed.
It is a love story with lessons addressed mostly to the Black reader. As a white person, this book has taught me that there is so much more to being Black. It is a safe space for Black readers to celebrate their Blackness. Alexis Pauline Gumbs introduces readers, Black or not, to the world of marine mammals who give endless love and wisdom, and who have always been there to teach us about ourselves.
It is a love story with lessons addressed mostly to the Black reader. As a white person, this book has taught me that there is so much more to being Black. It is a safe space for Black readers to celebrate their Blackness. Alexis Pauline Gumbs introduces readers, Black or not, to the world of marine mammals who give endless love and wisdom, and who have always been there to teach us about ourselves.
February 26, 2022
This is a lyrical meditation on mammals. The writing is beautiful. However, sometimes her description of anthropomorphized behavior by mammals stretches my factual mind too far. This is a book to read slowly, savoring the meditation aspects.
August 3, 2021
I couldn't make it past the first chapter. A lotta zeitgeisty buzzwords and minimal substance. Yawn
February 28, 2021
"I don't know. What I do know is water. And how it rises to the surface when I think of you. Water and how it floods me when I know. Water and what it means and what it could do and how we need it. In a world on fire where we are called to grow." - slow down, p. 44
Ripping directly from my tweet about this book ---> My love for Alexis Pauline Gumbs' work already ran deep, but reading Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals was so soothing for this manatee-loving, water-enjoying, Cancer of a person. I appreciated the tidbits I learned about marine mammals other than manatees and how Gumbs weaved what we know and don't know about their lives into these meditations. The centering of Blackness was also refreshing and affirming. I took my time with this book and recommend doing the same if you read it. Taking a meditation and sitting with it longer made me dive more deeply into what she was saying, as well as what was resonating at the time and what felt like words. Gumbs also have a list of solo and group activities based on each meditations and I'm trying to be slow in doing each of them as well. Words cannot express how much I enjoyed this reading experience and how many times I highlighted two words or a paragraph because of how I felt reading them. Highly recommend!
Ripping directly from my tweet about this book ---> My love for Alexis Pauline Gumbs' work already ran deep, but reading Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals was so soothing for this manatee-loving, water-enjoying, Cancer of a person. I appreciated the tidbits I learned about marine mammals other than manatees and how Gumbs weaved what we know and don't know about their lives into these meditations. The centering of Blackness was also refreshing and affirming. I took my time with this book and recommend doing the same if you read it. Taking a meditation and sitting with it longer made me dive more deeply into what she was saying, as well as what was resonating at the time and what felt like words. Gumbs also have a list of solo and group activities based on each meditations and I'm trying to be slow in doing each of them as well. Words cannot express how much I enjoyed this reading experience and how many times I highlighted two words or a paragraph because of how I felt reading them. Highly recommend!
March 6, 2022
This lovely mediation book gave me a routine for 19 days in a row (ish), and I enjoyed having that. Although, I did feel that the last few chapters were hard to read probably because I wanted to finish it ASAP. Each chapter is a meditation about a topic that marine animals (sometimes fierce sharks) and humans (specifically Black folks) share to show how much we are alike. I've learned so much about the marine animals mentioned in the book, and that only made me appreciate them more. Gumbs tackled social justice, environmental justice, and basic human needs in one book.
Earth is both the animals' and our home, but we, humans, keep destroying it and causing havoc for the marine animals all because of our greed. We definitely could learn a thing or two from the animals who treat earth with kindness or literally keeping us alive like the blue whale's lungs which deadass create the oxygen we need to breathe.
Earth is both the animals' and our home, but we, humans, keep destroying it and causing havoc for the marine animals all because of our greed. We definitely could learn a thing or two from the animals who treat earth with kindness or literally keeping us alive like the blue whale's lungs which deadass create the oxygen we need to breathe.
April 24, 2024
Honestly, I really enjoyed this book. The beautiful offerings and the lessons that are shared by the author go hand in hand as she shares exactly what we can learn from the marine mammals perspective is a cause for pause and apply. I appreciate that I could see myself throughout the book and I needed it. The invitation to learn about the ways that the marine mammals characteristics and tendencies and how they are used to navigate in their environment, caused me to reflect on my life and the way that I move in my own environment with my myself and those that I’m in community with. I recommend this book because it challenges us to see the way that marine mammals are nudging us to join together and learn from and with it. There’s a lot to learn and see. What would it look like if we take the leap and dive in. I bet we’d thrive.
December 26, 2020
This book is extraordinary.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, as poetic philosopher, brings us underwater to meet our relatives, the marine mammals. Readers swim through nineteen different meditations, all immaculately written as points of practice for looking at the world through a post-colonial lens, and thinking about possible futures for marine and land mammals. Critique takes an important role but love is the key message of the book, and is a welcome message.
In the introduction, Gumbs advises reading one meditation per day. This was a good way to experience it, as each meditation was a highlight each day. The use of language, history, philosophy, polemic and science are beautifully constructed from the first page to the last, and invite many re-readings.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, as poetic philosopher, brings us underwater to meet our relatives, the marine mammals. Readers swim through nineteen different meditations, all immaculately written as points of practice for looking at the world through a post-colonial lens, and thinking about possible futures for marine and land mammals. Critique takes an important role but love is the key message of the book, and is a welcome message.
In the introduction, Gumbs advises reading one meditation per day. This was a good way to experience it, as each meditation was a highlight each day. The use of language, history, philosophy, polemic and science are beautifully constructed from the first page to the last, and invite many re-readings.
July 4, 2023
I liked how this book was structured and how it intertwined science with self-care rituals and Black feminism, but I feel like I would have been able to appreciate it more if I was more interested in a) marine life, b) meditation/yoga/that kind of thing, and/or c) poetry. At one point towards the end, I felt like I was re-reading the same thing because of how almost redundant the structure of each paragraph and Gumbs' writing as a whole had become. I did find it interesting how she used the pronouns "we," "they," and "you" to foster a sense of collectivism/universalism, and I especially liked how I often couldn't tell whom the antecedent was — that allowed me to not focus on pointing figures or identifying names, and more on internalizing her message. Overall this is probably one of the most hippie books I've ever read lol
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