Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans

2 reviews

culpeppper's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

This is bursting with feeling, and I loved everything I heard in the author's voice as she read from this. The cementing of the speaker is established very early on, in this home, before switching to other places and times, exploring the violence inflicted on black women, trans women, marginalized women, women by other women— and yet finding love, sensitivity, and care to balance out the oscillations of theme. It's not all violence, hatred, but many of the poems focus on a sense of belonging or not belonging, feeling tugged from and to things, and being questioned on who, or what, you are the entire time. It's moving, visceral, upsetting while peaceful, loving in it's care for speaker, subject, and readers alike. It offers real vulnerability that I crave in poetry. I would rate the audio book version itself a 4.75 due to having trouble discerning the poems from one another, or what their titles were, as the breaks between poetry and title were too short to pick up sometimes. I will definitely need to see these all in a printed format, because although the author's voice added much more personal depth and allowed for some really interesting readings of the poems (like "Missing Girls"), I think I need to really sit with these and read at my own pace again soon!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Pregnancy, Slavery, Lesbophobia, Death, Ableism, Murder, Torture, Medical trauma, Rape, Violence, Grief, Child death, Transphobia, Sexual violence, Misogyny, Hate crime, Toxic relationship, and Confinement

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Classism, Bullying, Gun violence, Religious bigotry, Drug use, Blood, Kidnapping, Trafficking, Medical content, Racial slurs, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Cancer

yellow_star's review against another edition

inspiring sad medium-paced

4.0

This probably is too much for many teens to read and this is mainly an adult book.  Unless you're sadly already dealing with this heavy stuff in your own life. 

 There's a lot of sad in this, and it's not really a beautiful restful poetry book it's more of a mourning and rebellion book. The author discusses human rights violations against African Americans and queer people and  women, writes poetic responses to celebrities like Kanye and Serena and Michelle Obama, and does some experimenting with form like a word search for women murdered as a racist hate crime. Even poems that should be happy like the love of a mother or romantic partner are uneasy and fearful of future pain and violence. The poems about abused slaves and rape are too real and painful to read. Overall a good thing to read, but choose a reading time when you have some emotional bandwidth free to process it. 

There's also some sections on institutional abuse of the physically and mentally disabled. And some standing with missing or murdered indigenous women. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Racial slurs

Moderate: Physical abuse, Death, Confinement, Grief, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Addiction, Homophobia, Cultural appropriation, Classism, Child death, Child abuse, Body horror, Blood, Rape, Violence, Sexual violence, Sexism, Religious bigotry, Police brutality, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Mass/school shootings, Hate crime, Gun violence, Forced institutionalization, Death of parent, and Ableism