Podcast Summary: Diamond Forde, "The Book of Alice" (Scribner, 2026)

New Books Network, February 28, 2026
Host: Sullivan Sommer | Guest: Diamond Forde

Overview

In this episode of the New Books Network, host Sullivan Sommer interviews poet and professor Diamond Forde about her poetry collection, The Book of Alice (Scribner, 2026). The discussion centers on inheritance, black familial history, the power and limitations of written text, biblical and nontraditional archives, and poetic form. Forde explores personal and communal memory, the legacy of her grandmother, and the creative process behind turning the familiar—especially physical and spoken inheritances—into poetry that resists easy categorization.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Inheritance, Objects, and Defamiliarization

• Forde begins by reflecting on inheriting her grandmother’s King James Bible and how it became a framing object for the collection, sparking questions about history, recovery, and the nature of poetic discovery.
  • “The core of poetry to me is that act of discovery, to think through what we take for granted. I think that poetry encourages us to even think about language as, like, part of that thing that we take for granted.” (Diamond Forde, 03:31)
• She emphasizes the poetic concept of defamiliarization—making the known strange—in both objects and language.
• Sitting with the Bible helped her deepen self-understanding and connect familial patterns across generations.

2. Personal and Spiritual Relationship to the Bible

• Raised in a megachurch under preacher Creflo Dollar, Forde’s first experience of God was musical and communal rather than textual.
  • The Bible passed from her grandmother became a protective talisman during moments of fear (like a tornado warning in Tuscaloosa), but its importance remained rooted in family legacy rather than doctrinal study.
  • “My relationship with that book is not direct, but it is intimate. It's primarily always through family that it has been this kind of connecting force for me...” (Diamond Forde, 08:41)

3. Re-reading, Canon, and Black Women’s Biblical Inheritance

• Forde notes the Bible's status as a canonical, universally mediated text, creating special challenges for poetic reinterpretation.
• She draws on scholarly work (e.g., Renita J. Weems) regarding how black women inherit—and read—the Bible, often identifying with marginalized biblical figures to uncover overlooked stories and voices.
  • “For a lot of black women this is like their sole inheritance…One of the ways [to approach the Bible] is about, what am I overlooking?” (Diamond Forde, 10:59)

4. Research, Reading Strategies, and Generosity to Readers

• The robust notes section in the book is meant to bridge the alienation readers sometimes feel with poetry, especially work rooted in references or traditions unfamiliar to some audiences.
  • Forde refrains from explaining poems, instead offering “deepening” notes to welcome diverse readers. She recognizes that not all readers bring the same religious or cultural background and wants to enrich their experience without flattening ambiguity.
  • “The note section…is an opportunity to kind of close the gap that I think sometimes the performance of poetry can open.” (Diamond Forde, 15:23)

5. Autobiography, Biomythography, and Persona

• Drawing on Audre Lorde’s concept of biomythography, Forde clarifies her collection as both autobiography and collective biography—her self-understanding interwoven with her grandmother’s life and community mythologies.
  • “Calling it an autobiography feels fair. It is as much a biography of my grandmother as it is an autobiography of the self.” (Diamond Forde, 20:52)

6. Recipe Poems, Alternative Archives, and Black Women’s History

• Inspired by Melinda Russell’s 1866 cookbook (the oldest known by a black woman), the recipe poems embody alternative archives—testimonies to black life that resist the death-centered, white-mediated historical archive as described by Saidiya Hartman.
  • Forde discusses translating oral, familial recipes (often “just a splash”) into poetic form while honoring improvisation and community knowledge.
  • “Something…that feels more full of life than a recipe. Because…the idea is, like, you're sharing this with, like, ideally, your loved ones.” (Diamond Forde, 27:13)
• The act of writing recipes becomes both a political and joyful gesture—insisting on black women’s lived presence.

7. Audience, Whiteness, and the Politics of Reception

• Forde candidly wrestles with the knowledge that her publisher and a large part of her audience will be white. She recounts reactions that misinterpret her intentions (e.g., a white reader calling her recipes “colorblind”), highlighting the burden of having one’s work read through dominant cultural perspectives.
  • “Everything that we eat is in and of itself a kind of political statement, whether or not we're thinking about where the food comes from or who's allowed to eat it, right?” (Diamond Forde, 31:03)
• Despite imperfect receptions, she values any genuine connection the poems can forge and upholds poetry as “the bridge between us.”

8. Reading: “Lot's Wife”

• Forde reads her poem “Lot’s Wife,” reimagining the biblical figure’s transformation as a metaphor for longing and legacy, with striking sensory and culinary metaphors.
  • “I want to be a spice men burn for. I want to be architecture, the pillar of a temple where men line to floss their tongues on the salt snowing my trust…God, give me a name worth remembering.” (Diamond Forde, 38:05)

9. Form, Embodiment, and Accessibility

• Forde disrupts traditional page layouts—e.g., the poem “What Alice Saw” is formatted in the shape of a book, demanding physical interaction from readers. This challenges passive, Western reading habits and symbolically addresses the (in)visibility of black women on the page.
  • “I am trying to tell you my grandmother's black ass story of all of the survivals that she had to navigate, and not once ever in her life did she get to be passive, right? And to expect a passive experience from the act of reading a book is so privileged…” (Diamond Forde, 45:05)
• Accessibility is considered: alternate, straightforward formats appear for those who may need them.

10. The “Red Letter” Device: Speaking and Remembering

• Some poems use red ink—referencing the “red letter edition” Bibles (where Jesus’ spoken words appear in red)—to mark her grandmother’s words or what she imagines her grandmother might say.
  • “In this book, it’s my grandmother speaking…I am not remotely interested in making my grandmother Jesus. Instead, what I am interested in is asking you to think about what is spoken.” (Diamond Forde, 47:02)
• The device serves as both homage and a method for distinguishing oral legacy within the written text.

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Inheritance and Self-Knowledge:
  • “All I’m ultimately trying to do is understand myself…by understanding all of my inheritances, both good and bad.” (Diamond Forde, 03:54)
• On the Politics of Food:
  • “If I'm writing about candied yam and you're like, oh, yeah, this feels like home to me, well, how did that get on your plate in the first place, right? What is the history behind that?” (Diamond Forde, 30:23)
• On Poetry’s Demands:
  • “To expect a passive experience from the act of reading a book is so privileged to me… I want you to work just a little bit…The more that you dig into the poem, I want you to get just a little bit more back because of that.” (Diamond Forde, 45:05)
• On Form as Resistance:
  • “There's even, like, a poem that looks like a census, like a government census. And that couldn't exist without Fred Moten, for sure. Thinking about what it means to be the governorable, ungovernable. Thinking about what it means to be counted.” (Diamond Forde, 42:33)
• On the Value of Connection Despite Misreading:
  • “The fact that regardless of the intent behind the connection, the work still resonated in the first place, that means that I'm doing my job.” (Diamond Forde, 36:03)

Timestamps of Key Segments

• [00:49] Opening: Sommer reads from “Womaning” and welcomes Forde
• [02:00–04:54] On inheritance, the family Bible as “object,” and poetry as discovery
• [05:23–09:01] Forde’s religious/family background and intimacy through the Bible
• [09:44–12:49] Defamiliarizing the Bible; Black women’s identification with biblical figures
• [14:26–17:45] Notes for readers, closing the gap between poet and audience
• [20:48–22:05] Biomythography and autobiography; the book’s origins and aims
• [22:05–28:15] Recipe poems, black women’s culinary archives, and honoring Melinda Russell
• [28:59–34:21] Race, food, and the politics of poetic reception
• [37:39–38:43] Reading: “Lot’s Wife”
• [39:52–46:57] On visual/formal innovation, interactivity, and access
• [46:57–49:47] The “red letter” device—grandmother’s speech and memory
• [49:47] Closing remarks; finding Forde online

Final Thoughts

This episode offers a vibrant discussion of poetry as both an act of personal memory and political resistance. Forde’s The Book of Alice emerges as a multi-voiced, deeply embodied work committed to reimagining the archive, honoring black women’s lives, and inviting readers—across backgrounds—into an active relationship with the text.