Jasmine Mans

There are two ways to read this collection - as individual poems collected for publication or as a whole work, split into pieces. If you go the first route, it will be an enjoyable read but you will miss a lot of the connections that flow between the pieces (and some of them will be incomprehensible). Taken as a whole, the collection sparkles.

Home is safe. Home is where the memories are. Home is where you always return. Mans weaves a collection around these simple truths, pulling from show more personal history and the history of the United States (from slavery to the innocents dying these days) and somehow manages to make it sound almost hopeful and positive.

It is an oddly structured collection of poems - the book is not split into sections so you read about a girl getting her hair fixed and a second later you are on a ship carrying slaves; you read about missing girls followed by a lament about the boys that never come back home alive; she even managed to include a word search puzzle which actually fits and somehow makes sense in the whole.

And at the very end of the book are two diagrams - connecting the pieces and showing their relativity to the main topic - home. You do not need them to understand the connections but they enforce one more time the structure of the book. Were they done before the assembly of the book or were they done as the book got assembled? Who knows. They can serve as a blueprint or as compilation notes.

Highly recommended. show less

I loved this collection of poetry. I found this collection while perusing the poetry collection at the peacock library a few weeks ago—I'd forgotten about it but when I saw the cover again last night, I had to read it. It is the story of a Black girl and begins with reflections on mother/daughter relationships and progresses through her life with messy relationships, trauma, and exploration of current events. It includes poems about Kanye West, Sandra Bland, and the abhorrent history of show more forced sterilization. Short unnamed poems (thoughts?) are interspersed, almost as introductions (asides?) to what's next.

"Speak to Me of My Mother, Who Was She" (before she traded in / all her girl / to be my mother), "Blame" (for all my mother's / broken hearts), and "The Thing That Made Him My Father" (He doesn't talk / about what he remembers) really resonated in me. I have had these thoughts, I have felt these wounds, I have asked these questions. Later, three brief single-stanza poems hit hard: "Your God" (more than you do / your own), "Mortality and Magic" (occupy the same space), and "Refusal" (she is refusing to let you kill her).

Powerful, beautiful, relatable (I, too, need to call home).

03/04/26 Listened to the audiobook — so good. show less

I first heard all about this at local Black woman owned bookstore Socialight Society. for whatever reason I didn't leave the store with a copy that day (I am sure I picked up some other wonderful book instead), but whenever I would see a copy in some other bookstore I would think, "I want that, but I want to get it from Socialight." Well, I FINALLY made it back there not long ago, and I am glad that I did because this book was EXCELLENT.

Her voice is so frank and direct, in turns celebratory show more and spiky and raw and empathetic and confrontational. A vital collection. show less

Jasmine Mans' collection "Black Girl, Call Home" is phenomenal in its breadth and beauty. Both heartbreaking and breathtaking, Mans' poems address a stunning expanse of Black women's experiences, while still embracing the intimacy and particularity of individual experience. A poignant, impactful expression and exploration of Black, queer womanhood.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Books for providing me with a free digital galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.