Black Under

Download or read book Black Under written by Ashanti Anderson and published by eBookIt.com. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The poem from which BLACK UNDER derives its title opens with a resounding declaration: "I am black and black underneath." These words are an anthem that reverberates throughout Ashanti Anderson's debut short collection. We feel them as we navigate her poems' linguistic risks and shifts and trumpets, as we straddle scales that tip us toward trauma's still-bloody knife in one turn then into cutting wit and shrewd humor in the next. We hear them amplified through Anderson's dynamic voice, which sings of anguish and atrocities and also of discovery and beauty. BLACK UNDER layers outward perception with internal truth to offer an almost-telescopic examination of the redundancies--and incongruences--of marginalization and hypervisibility. Anderson torques the contradictions of oppression, giving her speakers the breathing room to discover their own agency. In these pages, declarations are reclamations, and joy is not an aspiration but a birthright.