Breath better spent : living Black girlhood / DaMaris B. Hill.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York : Bloomsbury, 2022Description: xxiv, 149 pages : illustrations; 22 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781635576474
- 1635576474
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | NonFiction | 811.6 H645 | Available | 33111010800684 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
A Netgalley "Must-Read Books by Black Authors in 2022"
From the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing comes a new book of narrative in verse that takes a personal and historical look at the experience of Black girlhood.
In Breath Better Spent , DaMaris B. Hill hoists her childhood self onto her shoulders, together taking in the landscape of Black girlhood in America. At a time when Black girls across the country are increasingly vulnerable to unjust violence, unwarranted incarceration, and unnoticed disappearance, Hill chooses to celebrate and protect the girl she carries, using the narrative-in-verse style of her acclaimed book A Bound Woman is a Dangerous Thing to revisit her youth. There, jelly sandals, Double Dutch beats, and chipped nail polish bring the breath of laughter; in adolescence, pomegranate lips, turntables, and love letters to other girls' boyfriends bring the breath of longing. Yet these breaths cannot be taken alone, and as she carries her childhood self through the broader historical space of Black girls in America, Hill is forced to grapple with expression in a space of stereotype, desire in a space of hyper-sexuality, joy in a space of heartache.
Paying homage to prominent Black female figures from Zora Neale Hurston to Whitney Houston and Toni Morrison, Breath Better Spent invites you to walk through this landscape, too, exploring the spaces--both visible and invisible--that Black girls occupy in the national imagination, taking in the communal breath of girlhood, and asking yourself: In a country like America, what does active love and protection of Black girls look like?
Includes bibliographical references (pages 143-145).
"Through the eyes and stories of prominent Black female figures from Zora Neale Hurston to Riley Curry and Michelle Obama, and with an homage to Toni Morrison's Beloved, Breath Better Spent beautifully and trenchantly captures the culture of Black girlhood and its changing relationship to American culture, exploring the highly visible and invisible spaces that Black girls occupy, from school, to home, to others' imaginations, and proceeds to question the disappearance - metaphorically and literally - of Black girls from the American imagination. Powerfully drawing on both history and her own experiences, Hill brings to life the vitality, creativity, and strength of Black girlhood while shining a light on a crisis we cannot ignore"-- Provided by publisher.
Black Girl Genius: The Histories. Speaking in Tongues -- Jarena Lee: A Platypus in a Petticoat -- Beloved Weirdo -- The Birth of Ma -- Ella Baker at the Ballot -- "Never Grow Old" -- Someone for Me -- Only Boys Have Fans -- Twice-Born Girl. What You Talking 'Bout -- Glutton -- Those Sunless Summer Mornings -- Hotter Than July -- Sign o' the Times -- Grace for Be'la Dona -- Dodge City Girls -- Still Scary -- How the Tongue Holds -- Sage Poets and Popstars -- Continuous Fire -- In the wilderness -- Wasting Her Lips -- Born Again and Again -- Never Grow Old: Part Two -- Gristle -- In Search Of The Colored Girl. The Gypsy Girl Gets No Solitude -- Nevaeh Adams and Sharee Bradley (Nevaeh's Mother) -- Kamille "Cupcake" McKinney -- for All of Birmingham's Baby Girls -- Aniah Blanchard -- Dear Christians of Alabama -- Anitra Gunn -- Kimberly Grisham -- Aziya Roberts #WeWalkForHer -- The Psalm of TeNiya Jones -- Homeroom -- Tendayi's Blues -- *** -- Baiting Boys -- New Year's Day 2021 -- #BringBackOurGirls: Not a Story -- #BringBackOurGirls: Premonition One -- #BringBackOurGirls: Premonition Two -- #BringBackOurGirls: Who Is Criminal? -- #BringBackOurGirls: Premonition Three -- #BringBackOurGirls: Premonition Four -- #BringBackOurGirls: Waifs and Wanting -- #BringBackOurGirls: Mama's Boy? -- ***.