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Black girl, call home
2021
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Bald-headed cabbage patch ain't got no hair in the back. Bald-headed skittle diddle ain't got no hair in the middle I Ain't Gon' Be Bald-Headed No More I wore these braids for two whoooole months, and tonight Momma gonna wash my hair when she gets off work at 7 p.m. It's longer than it was before, and when I wear it out at school, the rest of the girls won't call me bald-headed no more. Imma be pretty, as soon as momma gets home from work. Momma Has a Hair Salon in the Kitchen Wash Barrettes Twists Crisscross Braids Beads Cornrows Wooden brush Edges Silk scarf Nappy Kitchen Beady beads 4c Coil Ouch SuperGrow Straighten Burn Breakage Drip dry Split Crunch Grow Cut 4a Yakky Bundle Bleach Chop Short Dye Curl Slick toothbrush Damage Afro Roller set Shrinking Ugly Long Thin Thinning Thinner Weave Heat Press Hot comb No edges Toothbrush Nigga naps Sheen Spritz Dryer "Hold ya head still!" Deep conditioning Pretty Bleach Vaseline Shrunk Burn Breakage "Don't make me pop you!" Scalp Fine Just For Me Poison Natural Pressed Dry Damage Edges Trim "Be still" "Hold your ear." Momma prays like she's talking over God, and if God were to talk back she wouldn't even hear Him. That Was Her Way of Showing God We didn't go to church on Sundays, but my mother cleaned the whole house. Wiped from behind the toilet- to inside of the oven. That was her way of honoring God. Separating cloth by color, making sure nothing bled, onto anything else, stretching pork across seven days, because even poverty knows ritual. Baptizing Black babies in bathtubs of hand-me-down water, one, after another. A poor woman's tradition, but of its own abundance. That was her way of showing God that she had a servant's heart, that she was a good woman, with all of the little she had. Macaroni and Cheese "Macaroni and cheese," my mother says, ". . . is all about pattern," and how well you can harden the edges without burning them. Ma could count a teaspoon with the lines on her palms, could measure an ocean and tell you how long it would take to bring it to a slow boil. She'd say the women in our family grated their own cheeses bought their greens fresh from the harvest farm, and made sure the babies ate them for a good bowel movement. She wouldn't let us lick the whole batter, but gave us the spoon. She could remember Easter when the rest of the family forgot God. She'd say "You'll sit there until you finish your plate." Thought waste was the worst sin. Told us about all the starving kids in Africa who'd give anything for her meat loaf. She didn't let things go bad. She didn't let anything spoil in her refrigerator. I know grace and mercy was raised by the same single mother. We Host These Variables We try to leverage language as a means to a truth. We learn, on our paths, perhaps, that certain stories have no language, nor require one. There's something I want to honor here. I want to honor the silent story, the emotions unaccompanied by human language. I want to honor the weight of the stillness. I want to honor the silent ceremony between mother and daughter. A ceremony of blood and becoming. Because, I know, we exist with a heavy and stubborn resemblance. I know the distance between mother and daughter. How we are many burned bridges, as well as, a wealth of brick and clay, ready to be made anew from everything unmade of us. I am learning my mother's song, staring into her silence, as it stares back at me. Wondering of its depth, and wandering through it. I don't know all of her pain, or if it can be held with two hands. But she looks back at me, with girlish eyes, wanting to be remembered for something I do not recognize her as. Daughters have questions for their mothers, questions made up of no words; we host these variables. A woman stretched her body for me, and I have no words to describe her in wholeness, but without shame, I want you to know her. My mother. Speak to Me of My Mother, Who Was She Tell me about the girl my mother was, before she traded in all her girl to be my mother. What did she smell like? How many friends did she have, before she had no room? Before I took up so much space in her prayers, who did she pray for? B'Nai's Three Babies B'Nai had three children C-sections with all three two boys and one girl. Each of them would've stayed inside her and she would've let them because she loved them babies that kinda way. They gave her gas, chest pains, and sat right on her bladder, but they were her babies. Antione was the first, the one that would usher her into motherhood. He was the baby that made Tyrone marry B'Nai. The one she'd dress up and flaunt around. The baby that every aunty had a naked picture of. He was the baby that got Aunty off drugs. She tells folks that God sent Antione to save her, and she let him. Jasmine was the second baby, delivered in St. Michael's Hospital, screamed when she was born like all babies do, but didn't stop, a colic baby. Cried like she already knew how much pain the world had in it. Jasmine sent B'Nai into a tired depression. She gave up sleep for that little girl, and her job at the bank. Said that she didn't have time to make anything else of her hands, but cradle. Sometimes the neighbors would come over and hold the baby. These women knew what it was like to have three babies, a working husband, and to be left all alone with the smallness. LT was the last baby, named after Tyrone, the one they couldn't afford, and truthfully, they couldn't afford any of them. Tyrone got his second job when LT was born, worked all seven days out of the week, because that's what men are supposed to do. LT was the biggest and still is, weighed ten pounds, when he was born. B'Nai's favorite baby, the one that loves his momma, has his nana's eyes, a happy baby. The one she fed turkey legs, and pork bacon to. The baby that sucked the chicken bone. The one she'd hold on to the longest. The lightest, and most sensitive out of the three. There were three babies, and a woman stumbling into motherhood. No money, and an apartment in Newark. She learned how to cook with those children, learned what spaghetti and meat loaf could do. She prayed to God for her babies that they'd learn the vocabulary she didn't have. Prayed to God, for him to spare her three Black babies, when the plague came. Because she was their momma, and she was gonna do right by each of them. Period Mothers teach their daughters how to hide the blood, how to wash out the stains upon arrival. To pretend like the blood isn't there, or theirs. Mothers teach their daughters to make sure the blood doesn't have an odor. To never let the stench rise. Mothers teach their daughters to be misleading about the amount of blood. And the weight it adds to the body. Mothers teach their daughters to never bleed out. To not use the blood as an excuse, even when the blood is the only excuse. I resent my mother for things she has sacrificed on my behalf. Treat Her Right, While She's Still Here When I hang up on my mother, Sabrina says, "Must be nice." "I never had a mother to hang up on. I wasn't old enough to have a cell phone, or an attitude, when my mother died." Before my mother knew I was a lesbian, She prepared me to be a man's wife. Momma Said Dyke at the Kitchen Table Momma said, so you gonna be a dyke now? As if she meant to say, didn't I raise you better than that, don't you know I ain't raise no dyke, don't you know you too pretty to be a dyke? Why you gonna embarrass us like this, you scared no man gonna love you, you scared of men, some mannnnnnn hurt you, who hurt you? Momma said, so you gonna be a dyke now? As if she meant to say, don't you know how hard it already is for women like us, why you gonna go and make it harder on yourself? I don't want you in that kind of pain, this world ain't sweet on those kinds of women, I don't want another reason to be scared for you. Momma said, so you gonna be a dyke now? As if she meant to say, I'm scared for you. The First Time the Black Girl Calls Her Mother a Bitch This is the moment the Black girl unmothers herself, when she refers to her momma as bitch, and the word settles in her mouth, like a razor under her childish tongue. She will run away wearing her womanhood, like a loose pair of heels. Her breasts will sit up higher than they were. She will stand nosey and act bigger than herself. In this part of the story she doesn't have a mother, But she does, she always will. Grits: 1967 Nana's kitchen is as old as the Civil Rights Movement, sometimes she can't remember which came first, the grits, or the riots. Birmingham Momma said the bomb wasn't meant for me. I think it was meant for Pastor Martin because he be havin' them dreams. Maybe those white men didn't know that little Black girls we be goin' to church too, and we be foldin' our hands, praying and we be taking communion just like their daughters do. Maybe if I wore my church shoes the bad men would've never came for me. I knew they matched my dress but they always just be hurtin' my feet. I be thinkin', did God christen the bombs that exploded my flesh into sacrifice? And do anybody be hearin' those sacrificial scriptures, spoken in tongues, claiming Christ, before everything went boom? Before the smoke and rubble baptized these collapsing bones? Maybe if they knew, we were like the most beautiful flowers, right before the wind and dirt began playing tug-of-war with the delicates of our petals. Momma said, it only took one man to die for the sins of this entire world, so how did that man let this church tremble on my soul? And I don't remember there being enough holy water to stop the smoke, or to calm the burning. Momma said, some heartbreaks just be too hard to swallow at communion, some serpents just be finding salvation in baptismal pools, some church mice just be screaming America's dirty little secrets. Momma said some deaths, just be too black, and too white to be labeled holy, Some sacrifice comes without permission, Some sacrifice comes without fair warning, God can't always protect you from the boogie man, so some baby girls will reach the pearly gates and won't be tall enough to turn the handle. Momma said, some men . . . some men will just be too guilty to claim innocence with their own Christ. But what did . . . what did I do? I never wanted to play with the white girls. I-I never asked for integration; I wanted roller skates- an extra piece of cake, after dinnertime. Sometimes I just be thinking, maybe God was too busy trying to protect Martin to think about us, I ain't never ask for that man's dream. But momma . . . momma be sayin' that his dream just been askin' for me. South 14th Street: Nana's House Smells like Cigarettes Nana's house still smells like cigarettes. Today, Nana got open heart surgery she still drinks Pepsis, she still smokes, she's still strong. But her heart don't trust her, well, not like it used to. Nana smells like Newports, it reminds us that things caught smoke, but never did they catch fire. South 14th Street: The Attic Window From Waiting My grandfather died in bed with my nana. She said she saw His soul soar right out of their attic window. He left his body in that bed to remind her, that even without breath she could still wake up to him. She said, he left silently didn't want to wake her up out her sleep as he got ready to leave. Kissed her on the cheek, gathered himself at the foot of the bed and didn't take anything with him, not even her smile. South 14th Street: For Sale Nana is selling the house, the one on South 14th Street, off of Clinton Ave. The house she was married in, the olive house with the hunter green trim, the house with the uneven driveway, that skins the chin of every car that tries to pull up, even the nice ones. The wood is just rotten, the pipes need replacing, and Nana, she's just too old to maintain it all. The neighbors ain't like they were back in the day. Things have changed since poppa died, and it's different without no one 'round to take out the trash and to shovel the steps. At Aunt Kawee's House in Oklahoma She woke up out of her sleep, saw them, and yelled to those angels from the bottom of her throat! "get away from that bed!" And those angels left, empty-handed, they left. "And her voice was a drowning piano." Blame I blame my father for things he cannot control. I blame my father for things he can control but chooses not to. I've seen my mother with a broken heart before. I blame my father for all of my mother's broken hearts. The Thing That Made Him My Father I've never seen my father cry, or speak of his mother's death. He doesn't talk about his brother, the one that passed away. He doesn't talk about what he remembers of his first father, or his second. He doesn't speak of the story that made him my father, or a man. Because I Am a Woman Now Nana may have cancer, and I'm looking for my mother to tell me that it'll be okay, that there is no such thing as cancer, that Nana is stronger than cancer, that cancer has no place in our family, or in her body, that we know prayers stronger than cancer. But she won't say those things because I am a woman now, So she says . . . "We'll see, we don't know, but we'll see." Nana's heart sits between two cancers. The left and right lung. I have reason to believe Excerpted from Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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Booklist Review
Through concise and eloquent verse, spoken-word poet Mans addresses a variety of timely and poignant topics in this excellent collection. Early on, the theme of home is explored in tones both observational and acutely personal. The strongest poems gathered here feature mothers and mother figures imbued with attributes that are both deeply human and preternaturally close to the divine: "Separating cloth / by color, / making sure / nothing bled, / onto anything else, / stretching pork / across seven days, / because even / poverty / knows ritual. / Baptizing Black babies / in bathtubs / of hand-me-down water, / one, after / another." The book continues with powerful, succinct lyrics that explore a wealth of resonant themes, giving voice to the girls mentioned in "Didn't Feel Like Winning": "Those girls don't have faces. / They are footnotes / relapsing in the margins / of poems." Delving into heartbreak, community, family, race, queer identity, sexual violence, feminism, and celebrity (including the blistering "Footnotes for Kanye West" and an astounding elegy for Whitney Houston), Mans' poems are startling and unforgettable.
Summary
A literary coming-of-age poetry collection, an ode to the places we call home, and a piercingly intimate deconstruction of daughterhood, Black Girl, Call Home is a love letter to the wandering black girl and a vital companion to any woman on a journey to find truth, belonging, and healing. From spoken word poet Jasmine Mans comes an unforgettable poetry collection about race, feminism, and queer identity. With echoes of Gwendolyn Brooks and Sonia Sanchez, Mans writes to call herself - and us - home.
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