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Girl with Death Mask
Love, tequila, sex, first periods, late nights, abuse, and heartache. The journey from girl to womanhood is brimming with transformative magic that heals even as it shatters. These are the memories that haunt the dreams of what was and what could have been in Girl with Death Mask.
In four rich and imaginative movements of poems, Jennifer Givhan profiles the suffering and the love of a Latina girl and then mother coming to terms with sexual trauma. Her daughter is a touchstone of healing as she seeks to unravel her own emotions and protect the next generation of women with a fierceness she must find within. Givhan exploits changing poetic forms to expose what it means to mature in a female body swirling with tenderness, violence, and potential in an uncertain world. Girl with Death Mask is a cathartic and gripping confession of the trials of adolescence and womanhood.
In four rich and imaginative movements of poems, Jennifer Givhan profiles the suffering and the love of a Latina girl and then mother coming to terms with sexual trauma. Her daughter is a touchstone of healing as she seeks to unravel her own emotions and protect the next generation of women with a fierceness she must find within. Givhan exploits changing poetic forms to expose what it means to mature in a female body swirling with tenderness, violence, and potential in an uncertain world. Girl with Death Mask is a cathartic and gripping confession of the trials of adolescence and womanhood.
- GenresPoetry
100 pages, Paperback
First published March 17, 2018
4 people are currently reading
245 people want to read
About the author
Jennifer Givhan
24 books586 followersJennifer Givhan is a Mexican-American and Indigenous poet and novelist from the Southwestern desert and the recipient of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices. Her novel Salt Bones is coming this July 22, 2025 from Mulholland/Little, Brown.
She holds a Master’s degree from California State University Fullerton and a Master’s in Fine Arts from Warren Wilson College. She is the author of five full-length poetry collections, including Rosa’s Einstein (University of Arizona Press), and the novels Trinity Sight and Jubilee (Blackstone Publishing), which were finalists for the Arizona-New Mexico Book Awards and won The Southwest Book Award. Her newest poetry collection Belly to the Brutal (Wesleyan University Press) and novel River Woman, River Demon (Blackstone Publishing) both draw from her practice of brujería. Her latest novel was chosen for Amazon’s Book Club and as a National Together We Read Library Pick and was featured on CBS Mornings. It also won an International Latino Book Award in the Rudolfo Anaya Latino-Focused Fiction category.
Her poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, POETRY, TriQuarterly, The Boston Review, The Rumpus, Salon, Ploughshares, and many others. She’s received the Southwest Book Award, New Ohio Review’s Poetry Prize, Phoebe Journal’s Greg Grummer Poetry Prize, the Pinch Journal Poetry Prize, and Cutthroat’s Joy Harjo Poetry Prize.
Givhan has taught at the University of Washington Bothell’s MFA program as well as Western New Mexico University and has guest lectured at universities across the country. She was the 2024 Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at The University of New Mexico.
She would love to hear from you at jennifergivhan.com and you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok for inspiration, prompts, and real talk about the publishing world and life as a mama writer.
https://www.instagram.com/jenngivhan/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpEs...
https://www.facebook.com/jenn.givhan.3/
She holds a Master’s degree from California State University Fullerton and a Master’s in Fine Arts from Warren Wilson College. She is the author of five full-length poetry collections, including Rosa’s Einstein (University of Arizona Press), and the novels Trinity Sight and Jubilee (Blackstone Publishing), which were finalists for the Arizona-New Mexico Book Awards and won The Southwest Book Award. Her newest poetry collection Belly to the Brutal (Wesleyan University Press) and novel River Woman, River Demon (Blackstone Publishing) both draw from her practice of brujería. Her latest novel was chosen for Amazon’s Book Club and as a National Together We Read Library Pick and was featured on CBS Mornings. It also won an International Latino Book Award in the Rudolfo Anaya Latino-Focused Fiction category.
Her poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction have appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, POETRY, TriQuarterly, The Boston Review, The Rumpus, Salon, Ploughshares, and many others. She’s received the Southwest Book Award, New Ohio Review’s Poetry Prize, Phoebe Journal’s Greg Grummer Poetry Prize, the Pinch Journal Poetry Prize, and Cutthroat’s Joy Harjo Poetry Prize.
Givhan has taught at the University of Washington Bothell’s MFA program as well as Western New Mexico University and has guest lectured at universities across the country. She was the 2024 Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at The University of New Mexico.
She would love to hear from you at jennifergivhan.com and you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok for inspiration, prompts, and real talk about the publishing world and life as a mama writer.
https://www.instagram.com/jenngivhan/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpEs...
https://www.facebook.com/jenn.givhan.3/
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 21, 2025
I'd be glad to revisit this collection of poetry-- sometimes one read is not enough. But it felt powerful and authentic.
April 4, 2018
Givhan’s poems are searing, exquisite—their images visceral, strange and magnetic, exploring girlhood/womanhood, hungers and magic, exploring the beautiful and terrible body. Here’s a moment from “Avra”:
I zip my mouth
like a winter coat
the stars have turned to icefields
my hands to bees
And here’s a moment from “La Llorona Comes Over for Dinner”:
I’m her rancid darling
& she’s become the ancient mother
I’ve daughtered against
The years heavy in our bellies
as stones
And one from Bird Bath (Bano de Pajaros):
the Sisters are turning into birds
with plague masks plague hearts
I call the birds like a lover
in my bed I’m a prayer blinded and turning
into a fountain
The form has such a rhythmic intelligence, creating tenderness, fear from white space and sound: bearing sound and its absence, enacting at just the right moment a hitch in the breath, a song. I will read and re-read these poems—such a powerful book.
I zip my mouth
like a winter coat
the stars have turned to icefields
my hands to bees
And here’s a moment from “La Llorona Comes Over for Dinner”:
I’m her rancid darling
& she’s become the ancient mother
I’ve daughtered against
The years heavy in our bellies
as stones
And one from Bird Bath (Bano de Pajaros):
the Sisters are turning into birds
with plague masks plague hearts
I call the birds like a lover
in my bed I’m a prayer blinded and turning
into a fountain
The form has such a rhythmic intelligence, creating tenderness, fear from white space and sound: bearing sound and its absence, enacting at just the right moment a hitch in the breath, a song. I will read and re-read these poems—such a powerful book.
May 2, 2018
I can't get over how full Jennifer Givhan's poems are. Where other poets write in a certain style, she takes several and mashes them together. Each poem is so packed with story and nature and culture and femininity and growth and metaphor and I could go on. The craft is awe-inspiring, and the poems themselves are poignant and beautiful.
August 23, 2018
Randomly selecting books of poetry from the new books shelf with my eyes closed has been eye-opening. The last several books of poetry I have selected have been by authors that have worldviews and experiences that are different from mine and that is good.
I need to re-checkout The Cold and the Rust: Poems by Emily Van Kley which is the book I read previous to this one, because it was one of my favorites so far this year and while I started a review, I did not finish it and I had to return the book to the library.
But this is not that book and not that review. Girl with Death Mask by Jennifer Givhan is not a book of poetry I would have chosen if I had not randomly selected it for myself. Jennifer Givhan is a Mexican American writer living New Mexico and she writes about growing up, the difficulties and complexities of being an adolescent and becoming an adult woman with children. She writes about first periods, sexual trauma, abuse, her relationship with her mother, raising children, her body, her boyfriends and lovers.
Two years ago when I consciously set out to read poetry and joined the Poetry Readers Challenge group I would have said this is all new to me...but it isn't now and when I start reading a new book of poetry by a poet I have never read before and learn more about the poet, her writing style and her poems, I get excited for the newness and how this poet and book of poems will be different from the last.
Givhan has a completely different perspective on life in America and her milieu is a southwestern desert community that is culturally different from mine which is why I enjoyed this book so much. I love this one....
Mexican Wedding Cookies
We could road trip to Tennessee from New Mexico
the kids & I we could be brave they think I'm brave
we could unroll our bags & throw our chanclas in the grass
we could barefoot it we could unlearn the constellations
& learn them again unhitch their stories from their names
like the names I've taken into my belly & rolled dough
like masa to my mouth through my cervix I've
unbound them I've squatted toward
cement toward asphalt & thick summer air
squelching in my lungs not enough for the work not enough
we could love something ridiculous we could mix pecans
& flour & sugar into balls in our hands then scoop them
onto sheets in the oven sprinkle them in powder
white as that dress I swore I needed we could unbind ourselves
from kitchens from messes from our mama's ideas of what
we need for happiness for luck
for sweetness on our tongues
we could do it I've heard a recipe for letting go tastes
eerily similar to holding on the difference in the butter
or the temperature or the salt in the batter but we know
I'm lying all the things we could & why Tennessee -
I love the humor and self realization in the above poem and particularly the last line.
The following poem is a bit morbid but excellent just the same. There are many poems that have this dark, somewhat tragic feel to them especially centered around being a girl and and adolescent girl.
Daughter Lace Your Fingers to the Sky
Still you could not keep her
from the dance our bodies dance
when we let the boys take us
out to the country
& oh the moon may have been full
& oh the hay may have smelled sweet
as lighted sky & sweetened earth
silhouette backseats
Even through death masks
we can kiss & skin pierces fabric
She let the girls in the stalls & the jeers
in the halls & the slut
on the walls twine her neck bones
string her atop a chair
but her dog didn't bark & no one knocked
& God didn't boast of angels
& you Mother found her swinging
from the doorframe
I need to re-checkout The Cold and the Rust: Poems by Emily Van Kley which is the book I read previous to this one, because it was one of my favorites so far this year and while I started a review, I did not finish it and I had to return the book to the library.
But this is not that book and not that review. Girl with Death Mask by Jennifer Givhan is not a book of poetry I would have chosen if I had not randomly selected it for myself. Jennifer Givhan is a Mexican American writer living New Mexico and she writes about growing up, the difficulties and complexities of being an adolescent and becoming an adult woman with children. She writes about first periods, sexual trauma, abuse, her relationship with her mother, raising children, her body, her boyfriends and lovers.
Two years ago when I consciously set out to read poetry and joined the Poetry Readers Challenge group I would have said this is all new to me...but it isn't now and when I start reading a new book of poetry by a poet I have never read before and learn more about the poet, her writing style and her poems, I get excited for the newness and how this poet and book of poems will be different from the last.
Givhan has a completely different perspective on life in America and her milieu is a southwestern desert community that is culturally different from mine which is why I enjoyed this book so much. I love this one....
Mexican Wedding Cookies
We could road trip to Tennessee from New Mexico
the kids & I we could be brave they think I'm brave
we could unroll our bags & throw our chanclas in the grass
we could barefoot it we could unlearn the constellations
& learn them again unhitch their stories from their names
like the names I've taken into my belly & rolled dough
like masa to my mouth through my cervix I've
unbound them I've squatted toward
cement toward asphalt & thick summer air
squelching in my lungs not enough for the work not enough
we could love something ridiculous we could mix pecans
& flour & sugar into balls in our hands then scoop them
onto sheets in the oven sprinkle them in powder
white as that dress I swore I needed we could unbind ourselves
from kitchens from messes from our mama's ideas of what
we need for happiness for luck
for sweetness on our tongues
we could do it I've heard a recipe for letting go tastes
eerily similar to holding on the difference in the butter
or the temperature or the salt in the batter but we know
I'm lying all the things we could & why Tennessee -
I love the humor and self realization in the above poem and particularly the last line.
The following poem is a bit morbid but excellent just the same. There are many poems that have this dark, somewhat tragic feel to them especially centered around being a girl and and adolescent girl.
Daughter Lace Your Fingers to the Sky
Still you could not keep her
from the dance our bodies dance
when we let the boys take us
out to the country
& oh the moon may have been full
& oh the hay may have smelled sweet
as lighted sky & sweetened earth
silhouette backseats
Even through death masks
we can kiss & skin pierces fabric
She let the girls in the stalls & the jeers
in the halls & the slut
on the walls twine her neck bones
string her atop a chair
but her dog didn't bark & no one knocked
& God didn't boast of angels
& you Mother found her swinging
from the doorframe
January 4, 2023
More or less a a diarist, Jennifer Givhan chronicles a history of heartache from domestic abuse, which is, as I gather from one YouTube video reading by her, primarily intended to appeal to similarly situated readers. There are few victories short of escape in the struggle against domestic abuse, and exultant moments of wit and exhilaration are rare, though a few poems hit their mark well enough. Poems like "Quinceanera," "Miracle of the River Pig," "Faithful Woman," and "Reabsorption Elegy" are admirable examples. Givhan composes in free verse, yet, except for poems like those I've mentioned, the lines could have been easily set in prose paragraphs without reducing their emotional impact. As Eliot said, no vers is truly libre. Givhan writes novels tracking the same territory, and the expression used in both is similar. Thus, the emotional impact is drawn from the circumstances described and not necessarily attributed to the particular expression in a lyric. Poetic figuration is often held in abeyance to render the scenes in harsh and uncompromising language. Because of the subordination of poetic expression, as well as the repetitive character of the poems, I found the book lacking the kind of linguistic vitality and emotional rhythm that great books of poetry usually have. But if you are a survivor, this may be the kind of poetry book for you.
April 14, 2018
I really don't need to review this book. Jennifer Givhan's books are all incredibly beautiful and stirring. This one is perhaps a bit more experimental. It plays with form in subtle ways that only add to the artistry of her poems. I recommend this book (and all of hers) highly. If you're unfamiliar with her poems, start here and work your way backward.
For just a taste, here's a poem from the book in Blackbird, a well-respected online journal:
https://blackbird.vcu.edu/v16n2/poetr...
For just a taste, here's a poem from the book in Blackbird, a well-respected online journal:
https://blackbird.vcu.edu/v16n2/poetr...
January 3, 2019
A woman floats from a staircase/ dangling needle & thread/ just out of reach/ & buttons my ears/ my eyes/ i mean to feel frightened"(Avra)
These poems are breathtaking. They disrupt the reader and dismember themselves.
These poems are breathtaking. They disrupt the reader and dismember themselves.
July 19, 2018
"There's a heart in a bag (face it) throw it over the edge that thing pumping like fire like fury inside you never belonged to him" — "Furiosa"
<3 <3 <3
<3 <3 <3
January 9, 2019
Evocative, thoughtful poems interweaving traumatic experience with a feminine becoming. These poems provoke and deconstruct and rebuild with wisdom.
January 3, 2023
Haunting and beautiful. I was not prepared for all the tears I cried reading this.
December 28, 2023
My favorites were Pulse and La Llorona Comes Over for Dinner.
*
What does a mouth hold but secrets
I traced shapes in the fogged car window while he ordered drive thru two carne asada burritos and an extra large Coke I loved him that much I loved him all the way up that fucking slope & drop
I lay in a bathtub of goldfish unlearning the way the world loved me too tight or too narrow bright as the orange spirals peeling belly button kneecaps earlobes I never learned to love back properly
The trade off of losing anyone is love on either side
boy with bright pink parasol boy across the street who comes over to play with my daughter’s dolls I keep him safe while the neighborhood thrums
the boy across the street has found a dress that fits my closet hums he is humming in my closet his voice is sweet
Once I fell into a river but wouldn’t drown If limbs are made of splintered oars & hearts of apple blossoms this world’s for me
She wants you to remember those hills are volcanoes that they are sleeping & sleeping things wake up
*
What does a mouth hold but secrets
I traced shapes in the fogged car window while he ordered drive thru two carne asada burritos and an extra large Coke I loved him that much I loved him all the way up that fucking slope & drop
I lay in a bathtub of goldfish unlearning the way the world loved me too tight or too narrow bright as the orange spirals peeling belly button kneecaps earlobes I never learned to love back properly
The trade off of losing anyone is love on either side
boy with bright pink parasol boy across the street who comes over to play with my daughter’s dolls I keep him safe while the neighborhood thrums
the boy across the street has found a dress that fits my closet hums he is humming in my closet his voice is sweet
Once I fell into a river but wouldn’t drown If limbs are made of splintered oars & hearts of apple blossoms this world’s for me
She wants you to remember those hills are volcanoes that they are sleeping & sleeping things wake up
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews