![]() In another, entitled “If 2017 Was a Poem Title,” Browne sets her sights on Michelle Obama with a kind of reverence that reminds us never to conflate whiteness with universality, never to relent to the white gaze: “The 44th President is lifted off the grounds / by his shadow & his Black wife / She sideeye all day / She cheekbone slay.” In the anthology’s titular poem, Browne speaks to our culture’s stifling treatment of Black girls: “You ain’t supposed to do nothing but carry babies and carry felons and carry weaves and carry silence and carry families and carry confusion and carry a nation, but never an opinion, because you ain’t supposed to have nothing to say, black girl, not unless it’s a joke, because you ain’t supposed to love yourself, black girl.” ![]() It features more than 60 writers using vivid imagery and crackling language to embrace their vulnerabilities and push against stereotypes that erase Black women’s lived experiences, instead honoring the richly variant forms and stories of Black womanhood. Browne, Jamila Woods, and Idrissa Simmonds, instructs Black women to defy those expectations and challenge ideals modeled in the image of white supremacy. ![]() 2: Black Girl Magic, a new poetry anthology edited by Mahogany L. ![]()
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