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america, MINE
Sasha Banks's searing debut poetry collection america, MINE is a radical conjuring of a post-white supremacist United States of America. Blending speculative poetics and historiography, Banks creates a rich revisionist account of America, in which its most fraught institutions collapse and Uhmareka emerges--layering a new, strange, and graphic landscape with the textures of supernatural happenings, ghosts, creatures, and inconsistent recollections of American histories.
Spurred on by the trauma of and lack of local and national accountability for Michael Brown's murder in 2014, Banks mixes magical realism and keen rage to interrogate white supremacy's narratives, challenge its prerogatives, and usher in a future where it can thrive no longer. In so doing, these Afrofuturist poems by turns summon historical and archetypal Black figures like Fannie Lou Hamer and Aunt Jemima to the National Mall; rouse the ghosts of Tituba, Rekia Boyd, and Cynthia Wesley at the Canfield Green Apartments in Ferguson; and describe a period of raucous destruction before Uhmareka is ushered in by the strange and mysterious forces that herald it.
Will Black lives thrive in the re-envisioned Uhmareka, or will they struggle to balance new freedom with the lingering fear of the old ways' return? In america, MINE, Sasha Banks demands that we consider what possibility may spring forth from such imagining.
Spurred on by the trauma of and lack of local and national accountability for Michael Brown's murder in 2014, Banks mixes magical realism and keen rage to interrogate white supremacy's narratives, challenge its prerogatives, and usher in a future where it can thrive no longer. In so doing, these Afrofuturist poems by turns summon historical and archetypal Black figures like Fannie Lou Hamer and Aunt Jemima to the National Mall; rouse the ghosts of Tituba, Rekia Boyd, and Cynthia Wesley at the Canfield Green Apartments in Ferguson; and describe a period of raucous destruction before Uhmareka is ushered in by the strange and mysterious forces that herald it.
Will Black lives thrive in the re-envisioned Uhmareka, or will they struggle to balance new freedom with the lingering fear of the old ways' return? In america, MINE, Sasha Banks demands that we consider what possibility may spring forth from such imagining.
- GenresPoetry
76 pages, Paperback
First published April 24, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 20, 2020
“america will be done and you will know it when the statue of liberty sits down to wash her face in the Hudson; her skin will be black. Your grandmothers will weep.”
a warning. a mantra. a vision. a dream.
in the impossibly stunning collection america, MINE., Sasha Banks writes of the demise of a nation built on Black Death & genocide, and shrouded in supremacy—in favor of a new afterworld; a post-america where “all the living after/this/will be the vengeance.”
Banks brilliantly picks at america until it is all bone; then lets the bones tell the story. these poems are prophecy; a haunting, still brimming with a dark hope. this book is an Afrofuturistic feat—it envisions a future world, with possibilities in which our people live. it is a future reflection of what should be. and yet, it drips with an Afropessimism, too—this future ain’t pretty; there is rubble and fire but in this future, we are free.
Banks’ use of form throughout is breathtaking. Her words are otherworldly by design. she employs the use of erasure poetry to present 28 wax pages at the center of the book, solely using the names of america’s presidents in order. each page displays a new erasure—a true thrill for the reader.
if there’s one poetry book you buy, let it be america, MINE.
a warning. a mantra. a vision. a dream.
in the impossibly stunning collection america, MINE., Sasha Banks writes of the demise of a nation built on Black Death & genocide, and shrouded in supremacy—in favor of a new afterworld; a post-america where “all the living after/this/will be the vengeance.”
Banks brilliantly picks at america until it is all bone; then lets the bones tell the story. these poems are prophecy; a haunting, still brimming with a dark hope. this book is an Afrofuturistic feat—it envisions a future world, with possibilities in which our people live. it is a future reflection of what should be. and yet, it drips with an Afropessimism, too—this future ain’t pretty; there is rubble and fire but in this future, we are free.
Banks’ use of form throughout is breathtaking. Her words are otherworldly by design. she employs the use of erasure poetry to present 28 wax pages at the center of the book, solely using the names of america’s presidents in order. each page displays a new erasure—a true thrill for the reader.
if there’s one poetry book you buy, let it be america, MINE.
June 10, 2020
Truly no better time to have read this. The anger and reimagining contained in these pages feed so perfectly into the dismantling and rebuilding we currently stand on the edge of taking on in the US. Creatively presented, this collection is deeply honest in rage and grief with an air of magic I didn't expect.
April 3, 2022
OH. MY. GOD. This is an amazing book. Please read this! Her poetry is fascinating and surprising at every turn. Politically radical, personally heart-wrenching, stylistically strange. I love everything about this.
March 21, 2021
I mean sheesh! Kudos to you sis!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews