Ultraviolet Catastrophe by Andrea Walls

Ultraviolet Catastrophe is a 2011 chapbook excerpted from a larger work-in-progress, The Black Body Curve, a full-length collection of poetry in which the author considers the events of May 13, 1985, the day the city of Philadelphia, under the leadership of its first Black Mayor, dropped a C-4 explosive into the roof of 6221 Osage Avenue, a row-home known to be occupied by men, women and children, ultimately killing 11 people including 5 children and destroying 61 homes leaving 250 citizens homeless. The author tries to answer the question, how did this happen? How did issues of race, rhetoric and geography collide with the city's history to inform the catastrophic conflict with the MOVE Organization and the residents of Osage Avenue?

Available as an e-reader version. Better yet, check out the complete work for free here at The Black Body Curve.

Andrea Walls is a poet and self-taught digital artist. She is the author of the chapbook Ultraviolet Catastrophe (Thread Makes Blanket Press, 2011) and the creator of theblackbodycurve.com, an interactive poetry and digital arts collection. She is a Pushcart Prize in Poetry nominee and a recipient of a Leeway Art and Social Change Grant. She is a participant in the VONA/Voices Summer Workshops for Writers of Color and an alumna of the Hedgebrook Residency for Women Authoring Change. Her poetry and visual art have been published in venues including Callaloo, Journal of African Diaspora Arts & Letters; Solstice Literary Magazine; Tidal Basin Review; Kweli; The Fourth River; bozalta: Arts, Activism & Scholarship and heart (human equity through art) online journal. She lives and makes art in Philadelphia and is currently a media arts apprentice with the Women’s Mobile Museum.