The BreakBeat Poets, Vol. 2 by Mahogany L. Browne

In “Exile,” Diamond Sharp imagines herself discussing her Blackness with famous playwright and Chicagoan Lorraine Hansberry. Xandria Phillips’s “SARA BAARTMAN AND I NEGOTIATE VISIBILITY” binds the author’s experiences to those of Sara (or Saartjie) Baartman, a young South African woman who was captured by whites and displayed at freak shows in nineteenth-century France. The Black girl magic of the title, one finds, is an essence that contains ancestral ties and spans generations of women. Black Girl Magic goes out of its way to encompass a variety of experiences, and yet it stays grounded in reality, artfully blending the contemporary with the traditional. The stories that these poets share with their audience are relatable, heartfelt, and honest.

As a Black woman and a poet, it was like holding up a mirror and seeing my reflection. “self-portrait with dirty hair” by Safia Elhillo and “my afropuffs” by Jamila Woods follow suit, as the poets explore their identities in relation to both Black culture and the wider scope of white society that surrounds them.Īs I read through this anthology, the notion that my story was being told weighed heavily on my mind. “You Mean You Don’t Weep at the Nail Salon?” a poem by Elizabeth Acevedo, expresses this tenderness through the mundane challenges of PMS and beauty routines.

With wordplay for the “Gawds,” it pairs the stylistic choices of a poet with the emotional creativity that only a Black woman can possess. Modern and compelling, Black Girl Magic invites the reader to recognize the lyrical qualities of daily life for Black women. Browne, Idrissa Simmonds, and South Side household name Jamila Woods, Black Girl Magic compiles work from more than sixty Black women from across the diaspora, including well-known artists like Chicago’s Noname.īut no, this collection of poems isn’t about voodoo––unless you count the art of crafting experiences into words, and words into rhymes so fresh that they blossom like ripened fruit as sorcery. The aptly named Black Girl Magic, sequel to 2015’s The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, pays homage to womanhood and livelihood as it asks what it means to be Black and female.

The BreakBeat Poets, Vol. 2 by Mahogany L. Browne