A big thank you to Berkley Publishing Group for giving me an advanced reader copy of “Black Girl, Call Home” written by Jasmine Mans in exchange for an honest review via @netgalley . This book is available NOW!

Reading Jasmine Mans’ poetry was a visceral experience. Her work encompasses race, feminism, queer identity, and essentially what it is like to exist in the world right now while juggling so many different aspects of self that people have the nerve to objectify, take advantage of, and act violently upon.

The work within these pages is not all stoic and solemn, however. There is beauty in the musings Mans expands upon, too. Neither overpowers the other, which is a difficult line to balance on, but this collection of poetry does just that.

“I have reason to believe God made dandelions and metaphors on the same day.”

Mans takes us with her on a journey through mother-daughter relationships, racial violence and injustice, becoming a women when women can be so unjustly hated, religion and its relationship with love, and who we call our home. Pick up a copy of Jasmine Mans’ incredible work today- it is poignant and deserves to be treasured.

Poet Jasmine Mans COME THROUGH!!!!

There’s so much I want to say about the beautiful brilliance that comprises Black Girl, Come Home but I would be totally remiss to first not speak on the nostalgia that came with the unveiling of this cover. The barrettes, in varying colors was an ode to my childhood growing up in the 80s. You were nobody if you didn’t get your mama or big mama or big sister...SOMEBODY to do your hair and put the whole pack of barrettes in. Why? Because then they would match whatever outfit you chose to wear!! It made me think of press and curls, biker shorts and cross colours, hard boy Guess jean outfits: oh the memories. And that is exactly what Mans does with this collection: it took me back to a feeling of home and back to my own path of discovery.

Each poem was thoughtfully constructed, loud, proud and a testament to what it means to be a Black girl and Black woman in America and in your own skin. It is a ride filled with bumps in the road that each of us will take (in so many ways) to a path of truth, discovery, self-love and ultimately: HEALING.

Mans’ work does not merely scratch the surface as some do but digs deep into the heart of matters. In “Trans-Panic” she warns: Don’t come inside me looking for nothing. She goes OFF IN “Footnotes for Kanye” with ripe truths and urgently reminds us in “Serena” that: Women are not allowed real emotion in tennis, in the street, in the office, in their skin.
TWO SNAPS AND A HAND CLAP!!

There is a poem here for the Black girl in each of us. This is a collection that will sit with me for a long while and I encourage you to grab a copy as well. Easily one of the best collections of the year!

Special thank you to NetGalley and Berkeley Publishing Group for gifting me a copy of this collection in exchange for an honest review.

If you’re looking for poetry collections to read for International Women’s Month, I highly recommend this new one written by spoken word poet Jasmine Mans. These poems explore what it means to be a woman, a daughter, a queer Black woman, and all the joys, hardships, disappointments, and celebrations one experiences within those identities. Some of these poems document a coming-of-age, and I was reminded of what the growing pains feel like in that transitory period between girlhood and womanhood. Some are about feminism, rape culture, sexual assault, music and pop culture, and the relationship between Black mothers and their daughters.

I feel Jasmine Mans’s heart and joy in this collection. It is part memoir, part diary, part cultural criticism, and a call for every Black woman to find themselves and each other. I received an arc of this from Berkley and Penguin Random House, and I’m so happy I found a new poetry collection to recommend to everyone. The cover is also so beautiful!

Full of honesty, heart, and life. Unapologetic. There is so much honesty and life packed into these pages that it had to come straight from the authors heart. I found myself highlighting lines, passages, and entire poems that spoke to my heart. I took her words woman to woman and felt her passion for expression, for sharing, for healing. I was able to resonate with so much of what she was saying. It was soothing to see my feeling in print.

This book covers a wide spectrum of issues that are highly relevant to todays social/human(-ity) climate. The poems are very well written and easy to follow and understand. I read an electronic copy, so I cant speak to the print version, but I think the layout of the poems helps with the strength of the poems. I highly recommend this book, whether you like poems or not, this book has a way of touching your heart.

I would like to thank Berkley Publishing for sending the ebook to me for early (and honest) review.

I am giving this book 5 stars.

"Black Girl, Call Home” by Jasmine Mans is another visceral, moving, and reflective poetry book that should be on your TBR shelf. Even the word “moving” doesn’t do it justice….but if you don’t believe me, you’ll just have to see for yourself.

Mans, a spoken word poet, write about her journey into adulthood as a young, queer, Black woman. Her words are absolutely stunning. They are also incredibly heartbreaking at times. Although some of her poems are quite short in length, they are also quite striking in their meaning.

I’m disappointed in myself for not already being familiar with her work, but now I am absolutely hooked and HAVE to listen to her spoken word.

“Black Girl, Call Home” is on shelves TODAY, 3/9!

Thank you NetGalley + Berkley Publishing Group for this ARC!

Black Girl, Call Home By Jasmine Mans was poetry that felt like home. The way that the Brown experience was conveyed through words was astounding. Her ability to express the deep yet difficult experiences that occur with generations made me feel seen as well as understood. This book is the voice of the voiceless, of ancestors, neighbors, who were unable to openly defend themselves. The beauty of this creation is a gift that is well needed and welcomed. Powerful realities on each page wrapped together to present to the world, the reader, the receiver. I recommend this book for everyone to read! Thank you to Berkley Publishing and Netgalley for the electronic ARC.

Content Warnings before reading: human trafficking, violence against transwomen, trauma, separation of families at the border, forced sterilization without consent, lesbophobia, mentions of sex, homophobic slurs, racism, Birmingham bombing, gun violence, rape/assault, familial death, parental resentment, cancer


Whether you're a fan of poetry or not, you I think everyone should pick up this poem collection. It's filled with the experiences of Black women that we can all relate to and it's completely unapologetic about that fact. The poems were beautifully written and unbelievably powerful. Jasmine Mans tackled topics that the Black community often avoids discussing, while tapping into the emotions that ignoring those topics leads to. Sexuality, religion, hair routines, Kanye West, Whitney Houston, violence against the LGBTQ community. All important topics and all treated with care in this collection.

You should definitely be aware of some content warnings when going into this: homophobic slurs, racism, mention of Birmingham bombing, gun violence, rape/assault, familial death, parental resentment, cancer, human trafficking, violence against transwomen, trauma, separation of families at the border, forced sterilization without consent, lesbophobia, mentions of sex

I knew as soon as I saw this cover that I was going to love this poetry collection. The cover itself is so gorgeous and unapologetically Black that it was inevitable. The poems themselves spoke to so many important instances in Black culture, while also tackling items that the Black community often avoids discussing. From sexuality, to God, to getting your hair pressed in the kitchen, to rape to Whitney Houston's impact, I don't think there was anything in this collection that didn't speak to me. While I can't personally relate to every experience, I can absolutely attest that each collection touched me in some way because you'd be hard pressed not to find someone who at least knows a Black woman who has experienced these moments or thoughts. Every poem felt extremely personal, reflective, and just beautifully written.

Black Girl, Call Home is a tastefully eclectic mix of poems that speak directly to African American girls. The poems are very culturally appropriate and a good representation of what many encounter growing up. The author did a great job mixing past and current events and making them relevant. I had a good mix of laughs and, “aha” moments. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Many snaps for a job well done!!!

This does contain many topics that can be triggering such as rape, substance abuse, racism, and same sex relationships.

Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans is truly a masterpiece. Through her profoundly moving and incredibly powerful words, Mans paints a picture of what it’s like to be black, queer, female, mother, daughter, lover, human. She explores how society views celebrities and what it means to be a role model in today’s world. She utilizes a range of poetic devices and techniques to highlight impactful and thought-provoking topics such as race, gender, sexuality, feminism, family dynamics, inequality and injustice, pop culture, and mental health. A few of my favorites were “Dear Ex Lover,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Who Am I to Blame Her,” and “My Sister’s Keeper.” I was moved to tears by several of these emotional and insightful poems, and I am so grateful I read this astounding collection.

The first think that attracted me to this book was the cover. It was conveyed my childhood all in one photo and I knew the book would contain relatable content. I was not expecting how heavy some of the poems were. I recommend looking up trigger warnings for this before diving in. Heaviness aside, this book was beautiful, riveting, and painful. "What does it mean I keepeth my sister? Even when all she has the skin God gave her without direction or explanation" Each poem explored what it means to be a black woman in every capacity while living in the United States. Jasmine Mans wrote about relationships, medical care, politics, representation, and immigration. She wrote poems of heartbreak and heartache from a lover's, mother's, and daughter's perspective. She wrote poems that can serve as social commentaries. Some poems that resonated with me the most were: Dear First Lady, Footnotes for Kanye, Black Son, and The Boys on Broad Street Play With Coins. If you're looking to weird of the experiences of black women and children in this country, read this book. If you are a black woman and you want to know that you are not alone in your struggles to make peace with your reality, read this book.Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

There are some books that stick with you, and "Black Girl, Call Home," Jasmine Mans' poetry collection is one of those books.

Mans' poems give readers a look into the soul of a Black queer woman's identity, and what is discovered is a boundless depth. As a white woman, it's not my place to critique this work. I just celebrate and thank Mans for sharing her gift with us.

Some of my favorite poems from the collection include:
Treat Her Right, While She's Still Here
Black Son
Maybe We Can Fool God
She Doesn't Look Like Rape
Whitney: Fairy Godmother
Crazy
Serena
Nola

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this collection with me. All thoughts are my own.

Let me start by saying that I have been a fan of Jasmine Mans since the Strivers Row days and honestly even before then. I read the first poem and shouted out with excitement. I read “Birmingham” in her voice (because, yes, I have watched the video of her reciting this poem at least 1,000 times before).

“Black Girl, Call Home” is deeply personal and a true ode to Black culture. Jasmine takes us on a poetic walk through her childhood, familial relationships, and her thoughts on a range of topics including sexual identity. It is an adult reflection of a black girl’s experience in America, and it is beautifully represented.

I received an electronic copy of the book via Netgalley.

I love poetry and don't read it enough, but when I do I am glad that I can immerse myself in beautiful poetry like Jasmine Mans Black Girl, Call Home.

It's hard to review this book because it is both beautiful and heartbreaking, hopeful and devastating. I flew through this but had to pause after a few when the emotions became too much. "Black Son" was one of those pieces it hits you right in the heart and makes it so difficult to move past. I particularly enjoyed: "The Little Mermaid", "Crazy", "Sandra Bland", and "Missing Girls". "Serena" and "Dear First Lady" are both beautiful as well.

<i>Are women labeled crazy when you feel like their rage outweighs the evidence of their pain?</i>

Mans addresses racism, trauma, sexual assault and rape, oppression faced by LGBTQIA+ people, murders of Black people by police, Jay Z and Kanye, government sanctioned eugenics and sterilization of women, and motherhood. She doesn't leave any stone unturned, dives deep into feelings and emotions in a way that is difficult to read but you also can't stop. I hope everyone reads this book.

<i>Thank you to Berkley for my copy to review</i>

This work of art has left an imprint on my heart. I read through it twice to give myself time to savor Jasmine’s lyricism, to bask in her brilliance. I silently wept as I read, in awe of her ability to capture so much. Throughout these pages, she grapples with race, identity, love, sexuality, and so much more.

I first learned about Jasmine and her work in 2016, when I found her spoken word poem “Footnotes for Kanye” on YouTube. I was captivated by her delivery and the power in her devastating words.

In this collection, Mans gorgeously describes the love between mother and daughter - the deep ache to know one another’s pain, the sorrow in knowing how the world will treat your child, the ways that love can sometimes sound like reprimand, look like stretch marks, and taste like home-cooked food.

She meticulously chronicles America’s long history of violence against women, covering everything from sexual assault to systemic forced sterilization. In “Birmingham”, she writes poignantly from the perspective of a little girl killed in the Baptist Street Church bombing. In “Trans-panic”, she calls out the brutality and silencing that trans people face. Her poems about Sandra Bland, Whitney Houston, and Serena Williams are at once both a love letter to Black women and a lamentation for the way our society uses, dehumanizes, and discards Black women.

Mans explores her sexuality and writes beautifully about queer identity. Her poems describe a love that is so tender, sensual, urgent, and nurturing. The kind of love that makes you want to make a home wherever you are, to hold someone and to be held.

Ultimately, this work beckons to its readers to call home. “Home” is a complex place, and can look like a lot of different things, but these poems bring us one step closer on our journey to find it. I can’t recommend this work highly enough.

Thanks to netgalley and Berkley Pub for this ARC!

Instagram review will be posted on readwithkiks@ on pub day.
Goodreads review is up now but may not be visible unless you add me as a friend.

There is nothing as emblematic of Black American girlhood than bold and kitschy plastic barrettes, and there is no subject I adore more than Black American girlhood, so I was absolutely elated when I saw the cover of this poetry collection.

But with Black Girl, Call Home, Jasmine Mans is doing much more than celebrating to Black girlhood (though she is certainly doing that too). She is also considering what it means to be a Black mother raising a Black child; the poems in this collection at times frame this as an ethical issue. What is the moral designation assigned to bringing a child into a world that is fraught with systemic oppression. She is also considering our collective ancestors. “A Pouring Thing” is about an enslaved woman being used both chattel and the component of an experiment on reproductive health. At the end of the reading, I felt raw and empty as though something had been ripped from me. In “Refrain: Ledger of Women Patients Sterilized Without Consent,” the poem is simply a list of women, Black, white, and indigenous, who were admitted to the hospital for one thing and were forcibly sterilized just because.

Mans’ use of form is phenomenal, “Missing Girls” is presented as a word search but within the jumble of letters are the names of girls who’ve gone missing. I think the form itself is perhaps saying quite a bit about effort, entertainment, invisibility, and the sheer and overwhelming number of murdered and missing girls. Also her ability to marry the sort of poetry that is heavy on abstractions and the sort of poetry that is vivid in its imagery and skilled in use of poetic devices beguiles me.

This collection is ripe with topics for discussion. One of my favorite poems in the collection, “Whitney: Hologram” goes beyond the creepiness of hologram concerts and encourages us to consider how we live in a society that views people as commodities rather than beings deserving of compassion, even more so for any person of any or multiple marginalized communities. There are also many poems on Kanye West that explore Black women’s tendency towards forgiveness (sometimes instead of accountability) when it comes to people who may not yet deserve it, trans-panic and “crazy” women, being both Black and queer, and so much more.

I want to liken my experience reading this collection to eating a bag of potato chips. One moment the bag is full and the next moment your hands are dusted with salt and the bag is empty. And though you kind of wish there were a few more chips left in the bag, you are both satiated and left with a dull ache in your belly to remind you of salt, vinegar, and that mesmerizing crunch.

Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me with an ARC and an opportunity to read this collection in exchange for an honest review!

There was something extra special to me about reading this as Black History Month ended & Women’s History Month began - these poems are full of power and emotion, and so much more than I expected when I picked this one up.

Direct and to the point, Mans manages to cut you to the heart of the topic and leave you wanting more no matter the subject. This is one I know I will pick up the physical copy of and refer particular poems to friends for months to come, just incredible!

& if you get the chance pick up the audiobook as well, narrated by Jasmine herself which somehow makes it even more powerful!

Thank you to Berkley & NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for a personal review as part of the #BerkleyBuddyReads #BerkleyWritesStrongWomen campaign

Such a smart and compelling collection of poetry, meditating on race, mental health, pop culture, and sexuality. It felt like the literary equivalent of comfort food. My favorites were “Dear Ex-Lover” and “Laughter Sanctuaries”. Though I don’t often find myself picking up poetry, I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in modern poetry, it’s fresh while still being a source of very specific nostalgia. Just magic.

I could not wait to get my hands on this book of poetry! The cover just spoke to me before the words inside this book did. I loved absolutely everything about it! There is just so much goodness packed into this short book! The author’s words were so tuned in and relatable on all levels. Every poem caused a reaction. The conversations about hair, women’s bodies, experimentation and motherhood made me think wow, yell yes, laugh out loud, nod my head and clap my hands! There were poems about Whitney Houston, Serena Williams and Michelle Obama which showed little black girls they have someone to emulate because seeing a physical representation of themselves gives them space to know that their dreams know no bounds. I feel warm, comforted and SEEN by the words on these pages! I have already pre-ordered my copy!!

An incredible book of poetry. These poems really flow and tell an important narrative about being black and queer in America. I will admit that I was initially hooked by the cover, and really hoped these poems could meet my (admittedly high) expectations. They did! There were definitely some poems that I felt were stronger than others, but as a collection they all worked together really well.

Thanks to Netgalley for giving me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.