Celebrate Black Poetry Day

From: Penguin Random House - Sunday Oct 17,2021 05:33 pm

Read an excerpt from "Black Girl, Call Home."

"We Host These Variables"
by Jasmine Mans

We try to leverage language as a means to a truth. We learn, on our paths, 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.

Illustration of a woman made of puzzle pieces

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.

Black Girl, Call Home
By Jasmine Mans

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.
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