Graphite

BreakBeat Poets

by Patricia Frazier

Patricia Frazier’s Graphite is an ode to her grandmother and childhood home, the Ida B. Wells Projects, both which the poet lost to city- and state-sanctioned discrimination. The chapbook investigates loss and gentrification, particularly their effects on black young people from Chicago, whose political movement, resilience, and ability to make celebration after pain, drive these poems.

Genres: Poetry, Queer

44 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2018

About the author

Filmmaker, activist, and Chicago and National Youth Poet Laureate, Patricia Frazier uses art to express issues of urgency and celebrate young and Black political movements. Her work appears in Chicago Magazine, South Side Weekly, New City Lit 50, Vogue, and has been performed with Apple Inc. at the Library of Congress, Federal Hall and more. She is an organizer with Assata’s Daughters, an intergenerational, grassroots organization of women and femme-identifying folks working to deepen, sustain, and escalate the Black Lives Matter movement. A Davis-Putter scholar, she currently studies cinema arts and sciences at Columbia College Chicago.

Reviews

[Leah Rachel von Essen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patricia Frazier is the National Youth Poet Laureate, and her poetry absolutely sears in Graphite, a chapbook and ode to her grandmother and the Ida B. Wells Projects. It’s stunning, unflinching, and a love letter to family in all its good and bad. “Englewood Teaches a Lesson in Pronunciation” attacks the way that those outside see the neighborhood, judge it, prejudice against it, disrespect it. “My Gay-Ass Poem” made me want to yell, in all the best ways. Frazier is a voice that has so much still to give Chicago and the nation.

[Sasha Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

books like this are a breathe of fresh air and remind me why i love poetry.

[Rich Farrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were some great lines in Frazier’s collection.

I loved the concluding sentiment of “Auditioning for the Role of Child with Teen Parent” “this could be a story about a Black girl from the projects, who has sex/ at sixteen/ and gets pregnant, or it could just be a special about me and my Mama/ eating Flamin’ Hots on the couch at 12am. we understand what it/ could’ve been/ but were here now and we like it just fine.”

The loss of physical space and introduction of digital space in “What to Do When the Wells Is Turned into a Facebook Group” was equally an interesting discovery.

The response poems “I am Windy City” and “Funeral Scene Where It Isn’t Raining (a retelling)” each did justice to the originals and made something interesting and new.

This is another solid volume in Haymarket’s BreakBeats Poets Series, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of Frazier’s work.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it through three times in a row.

Growing up black in a beaten down Chicago neighborhood, these poems are so powerful, so tangible.

Great partner for Eve Ewing’s Electric Arches and Nikki Grimes’ Ordinary Hazards.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chapbook elegies from, to, of the South Side by a queer Black girl (+ national youth poet laureate) who simply will not let these mayors breathe (Englewood: “where white privilege plays Rahm the Builder"). Strong collection that ends fully flexed.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked the subject matter, the form, language, references - looking forward to more from her.

[flea · Rating 5 out of 5]

unflinching and vivid telling of life in Chicago...I really enjoyed these poems

[Ingrid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Confident and nuanced, celebratory and melancholy. Overall a strong and cohesive collection-- I found myself wishing it was longer.