Description
Book Synopsis
Featuring the work of Black women poets from Botswana to Brazil, in this collection, we encounter ancestors who made love, just for the sake of love, and women who die with each orgasm while attempting to mark the extent of their own humanities.
This is for the nuns, the singers, the clowns, the diviners and the conjurers who reject the constant attempt to clean up history. The wildly imperfect women of slick braids, shiny skin and succulent lips, building new homes from clouds for future legions.
Here congregate the women, womxn and womyn who do not believe in tough love that disguises hurt just to prove a point. They dance with the dead with exquisite feet, cheekbones high, reflecting their mothers' smiles.
Because no one claps for martyrs, these dirty/pretty women learn to walk cities like they own them, choosing the battles of their hearts.
If this collection teaches anything, it is that love is always messy, that our sacrament requires wet wipes and that we are just flesh and bone honing practice.
Table of ContentsCONTENTS
Foreword by Bernardine Evaristo xv
Editor’s Note by Natalia Molebatsi xxi
Diana Ferrus (South Africa)
I’ve Come to Take You Home 1
My Mother Was a Storm 3
This Song of Freedom 4
Nikki Giovanni (usa)
The Seamstress of Montgomery 5
A Prayer for Nina 7
Miriam Alves (Brazil)
Womanly (Feminil) 8
Subtleties (Sutilezas) 9
I Go Far (Vou Longe) 10
Makhosazana Xaba (South Africa)
Women of Xolobeni 11
For Dulcie September 13
Sister to Sister 14
Cheryl L Clarke (usa)
History 15
On Their Way to Life 18
Brief Interval 20
Jackie Kay (Scotland)
Fanny Eaton – The Jamaican Pre-Raphaelite Muse! 21
A Banquet for The Boys 24
Bonnie Lassie 25
Gcina Mhlophe (South Africa)
Camagu Mama Sisulu 26
The Ancient Voices 29
Anni Domingo (Sierra Leone)
Empty Cradle 32
The Cutting 34
Because I Am a Girl 36
M NourbeSe Philip (Tobago/Canada)
in this together 37
before after/after before 39
when the looting starts … 40
Kadija Sesay (Sierra Leone/uk)
Tattoo 44
The Most Beautiful Sound in the World? 45
Stilled Tragedy 46
The Moon Under Water 47
Ana-Maurine Lara (Dominican Republic)
La Zafra 48
Call 50
Lebogang Mashile (South Africa)
Vulva Volcanoes 53
Family Portrait 56
This Is Not a Poem 58
Ladan Osman (Somalia)
Heart Runoff 59
Sacraments 61
Boat Journey 64
ix
Staceyann Chin (Jamaica)
Revolution Food 66
The Hustle 69
Dirty/Pretty Things 71
Natalia Molebatsi (South Africa)
Lessons to Learn 74
Truth 75
A Kind of Storm 76
Elizandra Souza (Brazil)
My Only Woman’s Day 77
Regality 78
Preserving Heritage 79
Jumoke Verissimo (Nigeria)
we all live here 80
Lockdown Journaling 82
Train Musings 83
Nadia Alexis (usa/Haiti)
Cantaloupe 84
Watershed 86
Supposition 88
Prayer to Ezili Danto 89
Olumide Popoola (Nigeria/Germany)
a fierce love 90
mercy killing 92
Show Me 94
LB Williams (usa)
emotional autonomy 96
Little Black Boy 97
x
Tjawangwa Dema (Botswana)
loss and ampersand 98
Plough 100
Contrition 101
d’bi.young anitafrika (Jamaica)
no more pussy gate-keeping 102
Warsan Shire (Somalia/uk)
Backwards 109
Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre) 111
Questions for Miriam 113
Gabeba Baderoon (South Africa)
Autobiography of a Reader 114
Nature 115
Greeting 116
Camila Trindade (Brazil)
Heartburn (Azia) 117
Between the Lines (Entrelinhas) 119
My Body (Meu Corpo) 120
Jamila Osman (Somalia/usa)
Winter Blues 121
Diaspora 122
Boats 123
The Lost Key Poem 124
Koleka Putuma (South Africa)
europe asks if it can touch my hair 125
into the water 129
xi
Julie Jokoto (Ghana)
Another Slave 131
On Freedom’s Wings 133
Weapons of War 134
Michelle K Angwenyi (Kenya)
In Your Neutral Room 136
Ngwatilo Mawiyoo (Kenya)
Mermaid’s Lament 138
Home 139
In Vancouver, a White Woman Compliments My Hair 141
Batsirai E Chigama (Zimbabwe)
To Mothers Learning to Breathe and Failing 142
The Precipice 143
Breath Slayer 144
Safia Elhillo (Sudan/usa)
From girls that never die 145
rhapsody in pink 146
From girls that never die 147
Tiffany Willoughby-Herard (usa)
For Despair (or: You Don’t Even Know
How to Spell Black Excellence) 149
Poem for LB 154
vangile gantsho (South Africa)
breathing under water 155
i have inside me my mother’s doubt 156
missing 157
xii
Alexis Teyie (Kenya)
A Need for Sighing 158
Those Corner-Dwellers, They 159
Momtaza Mehri (uk/Somalia)
The Unthought Has a Comb 160
Wink Wink 162
Busisiwe Mahlangu (South Africa)
Girl Is Prayer 163
Worship 164
Malika Booker (Grenada/Guyana/uk)
Samson & His Mother 165
Ash Wednesday’s Hymn 170
Eve Daydreams 171
Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Nigeria)
Stillborn 172
Bloody Tuesday 174
Women Forced out of Girls 176
