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Chrome Valley: Poems
Hardcover
Publisher Price: $26.95
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ISBN10: 1324092270
ISBN13: 9781324092278
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Published: Feb 7 2023
Pages: 160
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.67 Width: 5.32 Depth: 9.01
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781324092278
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Published: Feb 7 2023
Pages: 160
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.67 Width: 5.32 Depth: 9.01
Language: English
Boldly lyrical and fiercely honest, Mahogany L. Browne's Chrome Valley offers an intricate portrait of Black womanhood in America. We praise their names / & the hands that write / Praise the mouth that speaks, she writes in tribute to those who came before her.
Browne captures a quintessential girlhood through the pleasures and pangs of young love: the thrill of skating hip to hip at the roller rink, the heat of holding hands in the dark, and, sometimes, the sting of a palm across the cheek. Friendship, too, comes with its own complex yearnings: you ain't had freedom / 'til you climb on bus 62 / & head to the closest mall / for a good seat at the girl fight.
Reflections of Browne's mother, Redbone, bolster the collection with moments of unwavering strength: give me my mother's bone structure / & her gap tooth slaughter / give me her spine--Redbone got a spine for the world. Other moments explore the inherent anxieties shared among Black mothers, rhythmically intoning names like the tolling of a church bell: Because Kadiatou Diallo / Because Sybrina Fulton / Because Valeria Bell / Because Mamie Till.
The characters in Chrome Valley grapple with the legacies of inherited trauma but also revel in the beauty of the undaunted self-determination passed down from Black woman to Black woman. Transcendent and grounded, funny and furious, Chrome Valley brings depth to a movement, solidifying Mahogany L. Browne as one of the most significant poetic voices of our time.
Browne captures a quintessential girlhood through the pleasures and pangs of young love: the thrill of skating hip to hip at the roller rink, the heat of holding hands in the dark, and, sometimes, the sting of a palm across the cheek. Friendship, too, comes with its own complex yearnings: you ain't had freedom / 'til you climb on bus 62 / & head to the closest mall / for a good seat at the girl fight.
Reflections of Browne's mother, Redbone, bolster the collection with moments of unwavering strength: give me my mother's bone structure / & her gap tooth slaughter / give me her spine--Redbone got a spine for the world. Other moments explore the inherent anxieties shared among Black mothers, rhythmically intoning names like the tolling of a church bell: Because Kadiatou Diallo / Because Sybrina Fulton / Because Valeria Bell / Because Mamie Till.
The characters in Chrome Valley grapple with the legacies of inherited trauma but also revel in the beauty of the undaunted self-determination passed down from Black woman to Black woman. Transcendent and grounded, funny and furious, Chrome Valley brings depth to a movement, solidifying Mahogany L. Browne as one of the most significant poetic voices of our time.
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