The "im" in "imperfections" is struck through on the title page.
Contents:
Machine generated contents note: Bloody Tuesday. My Mother Was a Storm -- This Song of Freedom -- Nikki Giovanni (USA) The Seamstress of Montgomery -- A Prayer for Nina -- Miriam Alves (Brazil) Womanly (Feminil) -- Subtleties (Sutilezas) -- I Go Far (Vou Longe) -- Makhosazana Xaba (South Africa) Women of Xolobeni -- For Dulcie September -- Sister to Sister -- Cheryl L Clarke (USA) History -- On Their Way to Life -- Brief Interval -- Jackie Kay (Scotland) Fanny Eaton -- The Jamaican Pre-Raphaelite Muse! -- A Banquet for The Boys -- Bonnie Lassie -- Gcina Mhlophe (South Africa) Camagu Mama Sisulu -- The Ancient Voices -- Anni Domingo (Sierra Leone) Empty Cradle -- The Cutting -- Because I Am a Girl -- M NourbeSe Philip (Tobago/Canada) in this together -- Before after/after before -- When the looting starts -- Kadija Sesay (Sierra Leone/mc) Tattoo -- The Most Beautiful Sound in the World? -- Stilled Tragedy -- The Moon Under Water -- Ana-Maurine Lara (Dominican Republic) La Zafra -- Call -- Lebogang Mashile (South Africa) Vulva Volcanoes -- Family Portrait -- This Is Not a Poem -- Ladan Osman (Somalia) Heart Runoff -- Sacraments -- Boat Journey -- Staceyann Chin (Jamaica) Revolution Food -- The Hustle -- Dirty/Pretty Things -- Natalia Molebatsi (South Africa) Lessons to Learn -- Truth -- A Kind of Storm -- Elizandra Souza (Brazil) My Only Woman's Day -- Regality -- Preserving Heritage -- Jumoke Verissimo (Nigeria) we all live here -- Lockdown Journaling -- Train Musings -- Nadia Alexis (USA/Haiti) Cantaloupe -- Watershed -- Supposition -- Prayer to Ezili Danto -- Olumide Popoola (Nigeria/Germany) a fierce love -- Mercy Killing -- Show Me -- LB Williams (USA) emotional autonomy -- Little Black Boy -- Tjawangwa Dema (Botswana) loss and ampersand -- Plough -- Contrition -- D'bi.young anitafrika (Jamaica) no more pussy gate-keeping -- Warsan Shire (Somalia/UK) Backwards -- Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre) -- Questions for Miriam -- Gabeba Baderoon (South Africa) Autobiography of a Reader -- Nature -- Greeting -- Camila Trindade (Brazil) Heartburn (Azia) -- Between the Lines (Entrelinhas) -- My Body (Meu Corpo) -- Jamila Osman (Somalia/USA) Winter Blues -- Diaspora -- Boats -- The Lost Key Poem -- Koleka Putuma (South Africa) europe asks if it can touch my hair -- Into the water -- Julie Jokoto (Ghana) Another Slave -- On Freedom's Wings -- Weapons of War -- Michelle K Angwenyi (Kenya) In Your Neutral Room -- Ngwatilo Mawiyoo (Kenya) Mermaid's Lament -- Home -- In Vancouver, a White Woman Compliments My Hair -- Batsirai E Chigama (Zimbabwe) To Mothers Learning to Breathe and Failing -- The Precipice -- Breath Slayer -- Safia Elhillo (Sudan/USA) From girls that never die -- Rhapsody in pink -- From girls that never die -- Tiffany Willoughby-Herard (USA) For Despair (or: You Don't Even Know How to Spell Black Excellence) -- Poem for LB -- Vangile gantsho (South Africa) breathing under water -- I have inside me my mother's doubt -- Missing -- Alexis Teyie (Kenya) A Need for Sighing -- Those Corner-Dwellers, They -- Momtaza Mehri (UK/Somalia) The Unthought Has a Comb -- Wink Wink -- Busisiwe Mahlangu (South Africa) Girl Is Prayer -- Worship -- Malika Booker (Grenada/Guyana/UK) Samson & His Mother -- Ash Wednesday's Hymn -- Eve Daydreams -- Ijeoma Umebinyuo (Nigeria) Stillborn -- Bloody Tuesday.
Summary:
"Whatever its theme, each poem in this collection featuring the work of 40 black women poets from Africa and its diaspora reflects the lives of most, if not all women, womyn and womxn--particularly those born Black and poor by design in a post-slavery, post-colonial world. Wild Imperfections opens with poems honouring different generations of ancestor women, like Sarah Baartman and Rosa Parks--born at different times yet all of them cultural and political mirrors to Black girls and women. Questioning and disrupting patriarchy, these poems speak about birth and death, fertility and infertility, rape and genital mutilation, war, exile and forced migration, but also revel in joy, desire, and the expression of sexuality and the erotic. But what is a wild imperfection? And can the language of these poets recreate a space for the 'wild' and 'unruly', the 'loose' and 'dirty', the 'witches' and 'bitches' who are perfect in their brokenness and who are no longer seeking permission for their rage, their joy and their healing?"-- From publisher's website.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.