Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood

Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood

Hill, Damaris B.

Hardcover

General PoetryGeneral Racism & Ethnic Studies

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1635576474
ISBN13: 9781635576474
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: Jan 25 2022
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.70
Height: 0.80 Width: 5.40 Depth: 8.40
Language: English

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?

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