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Chrome Valley: Poems

Mahogany L. Browne
4.18/5 (215 ratings)
Read Now Download Now
Boldly lyrical and fiercely honest, Mahogany L. Browne’s Chrome Valley offers an intricate portrait of Black womanhood in America. “We praise their names / the hands that write / Praise the mouth that speaks,” she writes in tribute to those who came before her.

Browne captures a quintessential girlhood through the pleasures and pangs of young love: the thrill of skating hip to hip at the roller rink, the heat of holding hands in the dark, and, sometimes, the sting of a palm across the cheek. Friendship, too, comes with its own complex yearnings: “you ain’t had freedom / ’til you climb on bus 62 / head to the closest mall / for a good seat at the girl fight.”

Reflections of Browne’s mother, Redbone, bolster the collection with moments of unwavering strength: “give me my mother’s bone structure / her gap tooth slaughter / give me her spine—Redbone got a spine for the world.” Other moments explore the inherent anxieties shared among Black mothers, rhythmically intoning names like the tolling of a church bell: “Because Kadiatou Diallo / Because Sybrina Fulton / Because Valeria Bell / Because Mamie Till.”

The characters in Chrome Valley grapple with the legacies of inherited trauma but also revel in the beauty of the undaunted self-determination passed down from Black woman to Black woman. Transcendent and grounded, funny and furious, Chrome Valley brings depth to a movement, solidifying Mahogany L. Browne as one of the most significant poetic voices of our time.
Format:
Pages:
pages
Publication:
Publisher:
Edition:
Language:
ISBN10:
1324092270
ISBN13:
9781324092278
kindle Asin:
B0B3GJ8CZK

Chrome Valley: Poems

Mahogany L. Browne
4.18/5 (215 ratings)
Read Download
Boldly lyrical and fiercely honest, Mahogany L. Browne’s Chrome Valley offers an intricate portrait of Black womanhood in America. “We praise their names / the hands that write / Praise the mouth that speaks,” she writes in tribute to those who came before her.

Browne captures a quintessential girlhood through the pleasures and pangs of young love: the thrill of skating hip to hip at the roller rink, the heat of holding hands in the dark, and, sometimes, the sting of a palm across the cheek. Friendship, too, comes with its own complex yearnings: “you ain’t had freedom / ’til you climb on bus 62 / head to the closest mall / for a good seat at the girl fight.”

Reflections of Browne’s mother, Redbone, bolster the collection with moments of unwavering strength: “give me my mother’s bone structure / her gap tooth slaughter / give me her spine—Redbone got a spine for the world.” Other moments explore the inherent anxieties shared among Black mothers, rhythmically intoning names like the tolling of a church bell: “Because Kadiatou Diallo / Because Sybrina Fulton / Because Valeria Bell / Because Mamie Till.”

The characters in Chrome Valley grapple with the legacies of inherited trauma but also revel in the beauty of the undaunted self-determination passed down from Black woman to Black woman. Transcendent and grounded, funny and furious, Chrome Valley brings depth to a movement, solidifying Mahogany L. Browne as one of the most significant poetic voices of our time.
Format:
Pages:
pages
Publication:
Publisher:
Edition:
Language:
ISBN10:
1324092270
ISBN13:
9781324092278
kindle Asin:
B0B3GJ8CZK

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