Download or read book Super Sad Black Girl written by Diamond Sharp and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2022-12-13 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diamond Sharp’s Super Sad Black Girl is a love letter to her hometown of Chicago, where her speaker finds solace and community with her literary idols in the hopes of answering the question: What does it look like when Black women are free? Lorraine Hansberry and Gwendolyn Brooks appear throughout, counseling the speaker as she navigates her own depression and exploratory questions about the “Other Side,” as do Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, and other Black women who have been murdered by police violence. Sharp’s poetry is self-assured, playful, and imaginative, reminiscent of Langston Hughes with its precision and brevity. The book explores purgatorial, in-between spaces that the speaker occupies, as she struggles to find a place, a time, where she can live safely and freely. With her skillful use of repetition, particularly with her series of concrete poems, lines and voices echo across the book so the reader, too, feels suspended within Sharp’s lyric moments. Super Sad Black Girl is a compassionate and ethereal depiction of mental illness from a promising and powerful poet.
Download or read book For Black Girls Like Me written by Mariama J. Lockington and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lyrical coming-of-age story about family, sisterhood, music, race, and identity, Mariama J. Lockington draws on some of the emotional truths from her own experiences growing up with an adoptive white family. I am a girl but most days I feel like a question mark. Makeda June Kirkland is eleven years old, adopted, and black. Her parents and big sister are white, and even though she loves her family very much, Makeda often feels left out. When Makeda's family moves from Maryland to New Mexico, she leaves behind her best friend, Lena— the only other adopted black girl she knows— for a new life. In New Mexico, everything is different. At home, Makeda’s sister is too cool to hang out with her anymore and at school, she can’t seem to find one real friend. Through it all, Makeda can’t help but wonder: What would it feel like to grow up with a family that looks like me? Through singing, dreaming, and writing secret messages back and forth with Lena, Makeda might just carve a small place for herself in the world. For Black Girls Like Me is for anyone who has ever asked themselves: How do you figure out where you are going if you don’t know where you came from?
Download or read book Respect the Mic written by Peter Kahn and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expansive, moving poetry anthology, representing 20 years of poetry from students and alumni of Chicago's Oak Park River Forest High School Spoken Word Club. "Poets I know sometimes joke that the poetry club at Oak Park River Forest High School is the best MFA program in the Chicagoland area. Like all great jokes, this one is dead serious." -Eve L. Ewing, award-winning poet, playwright, scholar, and sociologist For Chicago's Oak Park and River Forest High School's Spoken Word Club, there is one phrase that reigns supreme: Respect the Mic. It's been the club's call to arms since its inception in 1999. As its founder Peter Kahn says, "It's a call of pride and history and tradition and hope." This vivid new collection of poetry and prose -- curated by award-winning and bestselling poets Hanif Abdurraqib, Franny Choi, Peter Kahn, and Dan "Sully" Sullivan -- illuminates just that, uplifting the incredible legacy this community has cultivated. Among the dozens of current students and alumni, Respect the Mic features work by NBA champion Iman Shumpert, National Youth Poet Laureate Kara Jackson, National Youth Poet Laureate Kara Jackson, National Student Poet Natalie Richardson, comedian Langston Kerman, and more. In its pages, you hear the sprawling echoes of students, siblings, lovers, new parents, athletes, entertainers, scientists, and more --all sharing a deep appreciation for the power of storytelling. A celebration of the past, a balm for the present, and a blueprint for the future, Respect the Mic offers a tender, intimate portrait of American life, and conveys how in a world increasingly defined by separation, poetry has the capacity to bind us together.
Download or read book Remedies for Disappearing written by Alexa Patrick and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of poetry that moves from family history and the heartbreaks of navigating a predominantly white high school into adulthood, exploring the ways the speaker’s experiences echo those of an expansive and intricate history of Black girls and women. In this beautiful debut from an exciting new poet, Alexa Patrick’s Remedies for Disappearing memorializes Blackness in its quiet and unexpected forms, bringing the peripheral into focus. These poems muddy Black life and death, observe lineage and love stories, and question what “disappearing” teaches about Blackness and bodies. Remedies for Disappearing is gritty, sharp, and formally inventive, demonstrating Patrick’s imaginative curiosity, lyrical restraint, and confidence in her handling of language. Moments of aphoristic confession are balanced with imagistic precision as the speaker recounts the ways her aunties, sisters, and even herself have disappeared in order to survive. Patrick’s poetry is haunting and hopeful, striving to provide readers with the tools and context to acknowledge, define, and honor the complexity of Black girl/womanhood. Remedies for Disappearing connects Black girls and women to each other and to their own histories, and insists that they be fully and wholly seen.
Download or read book Because You Were Mine written by Brionne Janae and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2023-07-04 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In their latest collection of poems, Cave Canem Poetry Prize winner Brionne Janae dives into the deep, unsettled waters of intimate partner violence, queerness, grief, and survival. “I’ve decided I can’t trust anyone who uses darkness as a metaphor for what they fear,” poet Brionne Janae writes in this stunning new collection, in which the speaker navigates past and present traumas and interrogates familial and artistic lineages, queer relationships, positions of power, and community. Because You Were Mine is an intimate look at love, loneliness, and what it costs to survive abuse at the hands of those meant to be “protectors.” In raw, confessional, image-heavy poems, Janae explores the aftershocks of the dangerous entanglement of love and possession in parent-child relationships. Through this difficult but necessary examination, the collection speaks on behalf of children who were left or harmed as a result of the failures of their parents, their states, and their gods. Survivors, queer folks, and readers of poetry will find recognition and solace in these hard-wrought poems—poems that honor survivorship, queer love, parent wounds, trauma, and the complexities of familial blood.
Download or read book O Body written by Dan “Sully” Sullivan and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2024-02-06 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of moving and tender poems that delves into questions of masculinity, fatherhood, home, and learning to live in and love one’s own body. In his second full-length poetry collection, Chicago-born poet Dan “Sully” Sullivan considers the male body—its momentum and privilege when moving through the world, but also its softness and vulnerability. As the poems unfold and questions unravel, the book challenges wider social systems that uphold patriarchal notions of masculinity, seeking to achieve a new register of compassion, of self-love. O Body is also a migration narrative, navigating the physical distances between cities—the speaker’s movement between Chicago and his new home in Bloomington—and beyond that, the expansive, immeasurable distances within the self. Cityscapes come alive on the page and relationships bloom and deepen as Sully explores love, fatherhood, and family; here, traditional assumptions regarding masculinity and beauty are called into question through the speaker’s tenderhearted wondering. As more and more people awaken to the realization that the patriarchy oppresses people of all genders, Sully’s work in O Body offers a much-needed narrative of that shifting perspective. This deeply self-aware and big-hearted book holds space for reflecting on one’s physical body and interiority: the complex relationship between the two as well as their intricate and often fraught connections to the wider community and the places we call home.
Download or read book Super Sad True Love Story written by Gary Shteyngart and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-07-27 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deliciously dark tale of America’s dysfunctional coming years—and the timeless and tender feelings that just might bring us back from the brink. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times • The Washington Post • The Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle • The Seattle Times • O: The Oprah Magazine • Maureen Corrigan, NPR • Salon • Slate • Minneapolis Star Tribune • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Kansas City Star • Charlotte Observer • The Globe and Mail • Vancouver Sun • Montreal Gazette • Kirkus Reviews In the near future, America is crushed by a financial crisis and our patient Chinese creditors may just be ready to foreclose on the whole mess. Then Lenny Abramov, son of an Russian immigrant janitor and ardent fan of “printed, bound media artifacts” (aka books), meets Eunice Park, an impossibly cute Korean American woman with a major in Images and a minor in Assertiveness. Could falling in love redeem a planet falling apart?
Download or read book When the Black Girl Sings written by Bil Wright and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-04-07 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this moving young adult novel, acclaimed author Bil Wright tells the story of one girl’s search to find a home where she truly belongs. Lahni Schuler is the only black student at her private prep school. She’s also the adopted child of two loving, but white, parents who are on the road to divorce. Struggling to comfort her mother and angry with her dad, Lahni feels more and more alone. But when Lahni and her mother attend a local church one Sunday, Lahni hears the amazing gospel choir, and her life takes an unexpected turn. It so happens that one of Lahni’s teachers, Mr. Faringhelli, has nominated her for a talent competition, and she is expected to perform a song in front of the whole school. Lahni decides to join the church choir to help her become a better singer. But what starts out as a way to practice singing becomes a place of belonging and a means for Lahni to discover her own identity.
Download or read book Black Girl Rising written by Brynne Barnes and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This enduring anthem for Black girls celebrates their power, potential, and brilliance—for themselves and for the world. You are a thousand curls unfurling in your hair. You are a thousand fists standing proudly in air. You are the song of swallows, lifting sun as they sing— breaking light with their beaks, breaking sky with their wings . . . Black girlhood is beautiful! In this deeply moving celebration and rallying cry, and in the face of the many messages that still work to convince Black girls that they should shrink themselves, hide their light, know their place, Brynne Barnes and Tatyana Fazlalizadeh reclaim that narrative: A Black girl's place is everywhere, and her selfhood is everything she can dream it to be. With poignant, poetic prose and striking, color-drenched illustrations, this empowering picture book centers the inherent worthiness and radiance of Black girls that is still far too often denied. A love letter to and for Black girls everywhere, Black Girl Rising alchemizes the sorrow and strength of the past into the brilliant gold of the future, sweeping young readers of all backgrounds into a lyrical exploration of what it means to be Black, female, and glorious. EMPOWERS AND INSPIRES SELF-LOVE: This uplifting anthem of Black brilliance shuts out invalidating messages and replaces them with unconditional assertions of Black girls' rights to be loved, to be inspired, and to exist fully in their power. Everything about Black girls deserves to be seen and celebrated—and this picture book provides a welcome opportunity for readers of all ages to do so! MAKES A GREAT GIFT: From graduation to birthdays to other key milestones, this book makes a perfect present for consumers looking to celebrate, empower, and inspire the women in their lives—whether daughters, granddaughters, nieces, cousins, or friends. EXCELLENT READ-ALOUD: Warm, loving sentiments paired with poetic prose and a light rhyme make this picture book a great choice to read aloud together at story time, bedtime, or any time. It's sure to become a fast favorite and inspire countless moments of parent-child connection. Perfect for: • Parents, grandparents, and caregivers • Teachers and librarians • Readers who loved Hair Love and Little Leaders • The vast #WeNeedDiverseBooks community • Anyone seeking books about Black joy, female empowerment, or Black history • Gift-givers looking for a unique and inspiring book for the girls (or women) in their lives
Download or read book For a Little Black Girl written by Shanté D. Gray and published by Dorrance Publishing. This book was released on 2021-07-12 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For a Little Black Girl By: Shanté D. Gray For A Little Black Girl is the perfect book to help empower and build self-confidence as a young Black girl grows into adulthood. Many Black girls grow up being teased about their skin color or hair. Composed of reaffirming phrases, For A Little Black Girl is a reminder that your Black skin is beautiful; your hair is beautiful; your mind is beautiful; YOU are beautiful!
Download or read book American Inmate written by Justin Rovillos Monson and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2024-03-12 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rigorous and defiant collection that subverts contemporary discourse and representations of incarceration, of hip-hop, and of Asian American culture and literature. Justin Rovillos Monson’s poetic voice is sharp and irreverent—improvisational yet thoughtful, musical, and tender, achieving a range of lyrical registers woven seamlessly throughout the book from the first to last poem. Monson’s work challenges his readers with uncomfortable but essential, urgent, and necessary questions: What does it mean to be in the world and yet live apart from it? What happens to the minds and bodies of those locked away? What happens to the minds and bodies of their loved ones? How can America get free? Braiding personal narrative with contemporary rap lyrics and institutional language, Monson deepens the nuances and dimensions of and within Asian American poetics, prison poetics, and hip-hop poetics with his deft and experimental writing style. American Inmate speaks through cages, bars, walls, and borders, collapsing widespread misconceptions and stereotypes regarding incarceration, and shrinking the distance between readers on the outside and the complex interiority of an incarcerated human being. Sometimes slipping, sometimes soaring, sometimes laughing, sometimes dying, Monson’s fiery debut is a fresh, moving, elucidative work that will challenge readers to think more critically about the systems that govern our lives, to imagine with compassion and inclusivity, and to settle for nothing less than a truly free future that is liberatory for all.
Download or read book Black Bold Beautiful written by Jemema Thomas and published by . This book was released on 2021-07-16 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nicole, a beautiful dark-skinned girl, was excited to move from her native Island Tortola, British Virgin Islands to America. Upon arriving at her new school in America, she was ridiculed and teased for being the only one in her class with different colored hair and skin. Sad and confused, she reported it to her mother, who reminded her about how beautiful she was by giving examples of strong black women who made history like Harriet Tubman and Kamala Harris. By the end of the book, Nicole learns that it is ok to be different. She learns that it is okay to be black, bold, and beautiful just the way you are. A great book for ages 7-13 and also a great read for parents.
Download or read book The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin written by Kirsten Childs and published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.. This book was released on 2003 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What's a black girl from sunny Southern California to do? White people are blowing up black girls in Birmingham churches. Black people are shouting "Black is beautiful" while straightening their hair and coveting light skin. Viveca Stanton's answer: Slap on a bubbly smile and be as white as you can be! In a humorous and pointed coming-of-age story spanning the sixties through the nineties, Viveca blithely sails through the confusing worlds of racism, sexism and Broadway showbiz until she's forced to face the devastating effect self-denial has had on her life.
Download or read book Black Girl IRL written by Gail Hamilton Azodo and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2024-03-12 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whatever happened to the regular Black girl? The one who works a 9 to 5 or maybe owns her own business or is completing her master's. Or how about the one who is figuring out how to be a good mom or wife or daughter? Or the one that's doing all of the above? Hi, that's a lot of us. Black women are doing it all, and it's not just the Oprahs and Beyonces. There's an entire group of us that are just, well, regular. We're handling things like figuring out if this is the right time to speak up in that work meeting and risk our opinion now being the "voice" for all Black women at our job or if this is the right night to introduce our silk hair bonnet to our nighttime routine in the relationship that is just getting serious. These experiences range from impactful to trivial life decisions, but they shape who we are. So where is our place for this type of girl-talk and unfiltered sharing? Gail Hamilton Azodo is your thirty-something, corporate-ladder-climber turned entrepreneur, mom, wife, and Black Girl IRL. In her dinners, happy hours, and group texts with Black women they shared everything from motivational quotes to the latest on Black girl advice on how to cut ties with friends who no longer aligned with our purpose. In short, providing each other with a how-to on successfully navigating life as everyday Black women. Gail is here to share these authentic stories of being everyday Black women—with a fair number of frills but mostly regular life. It's going to be long, soul-nourishing evening.
Download or read book Little Black Girls written by Heidi Vaughn and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2020-09-25 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There's a special place of your own in this book for each and every little black girl.
Download or read book A Book for Black Girls written by Antoinette Oesterlein and published by . This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reminder of all that makes black girls unique and beautiful.
Download or read book Dear Beautiful Black Girls written by Ashley Wilson and published by . This book was released on 2016-11-27 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ode to black girl magic. Celebrating black beauty in every shade and texture. A book created to inspire young girls of color to love themselves, unapologetically. Dear Beautiful Black Girls... I am you. I love you.
