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Perfect Black
2022 NAACP Image Award Winner
Crystal Wilkinson combines a deep love for her rural roots with a passion for language and storytelling in this compelling collection of poetry and prose about girlhood, racism, and political awakening, imbued with vivid imagery of growing up in Southern Appalachia. In Perfect Black , the acclaimed writer muses on such topics as motherhood, the politics of her Black body, lost fathers, mental illness, sexual abuse, and religion. It is a captivating conversation about life, love, loss, and pain, interwoven with striking illustrations by her long-time partner, Ronald W. Davis.
Crystal Wilkinson combines a deep love for her rural roots with a passion for language and storytelling in this compelling collection of poetry and prose about girlhood, racism, and political awakening, imbued with vivid imagery of growing up in Southern Appalachia. In Perfect Black , the acclaimed writer muses on such topics as motherhood, the politics of her Black body, lost fathers, mental illness, sexual abuse, and religion. It is a captivating conversation about life, love, loss, and pain, interwoven with striking illustrations by her long-time partner, Ronald W. Davis.
110 pages, Paperback
First published August 3, 2021
11 people are currently reading
674 people want to read
About the author
Crystal Wilkinson
19 books437 followersCrystal Wilkinson, a recent fellowship recipient of the Academy of American Poets, is the award-winning author of Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts, a culinary memoir, Perfect Black, a collection of poems, and three works of fiction—The Birds of Opulence , Water Street and Blackberries, Blackberries. She is the recipient of an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Poetry, an O. Henry Prize, a USA Artists Fellowship, and an Ernest J. Gaines Prize for Literary Excellence. She has received recognition from the Yaddo Foundation, Hedgebrook, The Vermont Studio Center for the Arts, The Hermitage Foundation and others. Her short stories, poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including most recently in The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, STORY, Agni Literary Journal, Emergence, Oxford American and Southern Cultures. She was Poet Laureate of Kentucky from 2021 to 2023. She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Kentucky where she is a Bush-Holbrook Endowed Professor.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
April 21, 2022
As featured in Quick Lit on Modern Mrs Darcy.
I've been a fan of Kentucky poet Crystal Wilkinson since reading her excellent novel The Birds of Opulence several years ago and was eagerly anticipating this new collection, which combines poetry and prose to great effect. Wilkinson seamlessly covers so much ground here—joy and heartbreak, love and trauma, heritage and family, Prince songs and plenty of food. Favorites include the poems Dance and Heritage, and the prose piece Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts. Don't miss the striking illustrations by her long-time partner, Ronald W. Davis, which punctuate the text.
I've been a fan of Kentucky poet Crystal Wilkinson since reading her excellent novel The Birds of Opulence several years ago and was eagerly anticipating this new collection, which combines poetry and prose to great effect. Wilkinson seamlessly covers so much ground here—joy and heartbreak, love and trauma, heritage and family, Prince songs and plenty of food. Favorites include the poems Dance and Heritage, and the prose piece Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts. Don't miss the striking illustrations by her long-time partner, Ronald W. Davis, which punctuate the text.
August 28, 2021
Loved, loved, loved this collection that reads in a way like a memoir.
August 5, 2022
A perfect book. I've died and gone to heaven!
September 23, 2021
For anyone who feels a deep longing for childhood home, a nostalgia for family stories and relationships, and for those who want to understand more about the pull of place, this gorgeous collection of poetry and memories will fill a void and satiate the soul’s hunger.
November 12, 2021
Tender, startling poems, country as all get out. Fascinated by the repeated material in the poems “The Creek” and “A Meditation on Grief.” I have never seen a collection quite like this and have already used it to teach a class of young poets.
May 12, 2023
an ode to growing up black in appalachia & an ode to the black women & ancestors who paved the path forward for the poet. a beautiful read !
August 26, 2021
Evocative. Exquisite. Essential. This is the type of book I will read again and again.
The author takes the reader on an extraordinary journey through the path of her childhood and upbringing, right up to the phenomenal woman she is today.
Her imagery is so vivid, you can smell and taste the foods in the kitchen settings she describes.
In “Dig If You Will the Picture,” she brings you right there with her dancing to Prince music when she shows the deeper reason why his music resonates so much to her.
I was her amen corner when I read “Mother’s Day” and “Dear Johnny P.”
I could relate to the entire book but especially the poems “On Being Country” and “Black & Fat & Perfect.”
The illustrations are also extraordinary. Created by the author’s partner, they are the perfect complement to her words, just as he is in life.
I absolutely love this book. Run and get your copy so that you have something to cherish each read.
The author takes the reader on an extraordinary journey through the path of her childhood and upbringing, right up to the phenomenal woman she is today.
Her imagery is so vivid, you can smell and taste the foods in the kitchen settings she describes.
In “Dig If You Will the Picture,” she brings you right there with her dancing to Prince music when she shows the deeper reason why his music resonates so much to her.
I was her amen corner when I read “Mother’s Day” and “Dear Johnny P.”
I could relate to the entire book but especially the poems “On Being Country” and “Black & Fat & Perfect.”
The illustrations are also extraordinary. Created by the author’s partner, they are the perfect complement to her words, just as he is in life.
I absolutely love this book. Run and get your copy so that you have something to cherish each read.
May 11, 2022
I want to read more by Crystal Wilkinson. What a Kentucky treasure. The whole book was incredible but her cooking memories were delightful. Oh, how the women fed everyone without the help of online delivery.
November 23, 2021
Absolutely breathtaking. An incredible collection of poems.
November 23, 2021
thoughts coming shortly
April 3, 2022
A beautiful collection of poetry—intimate, moving, and full of life, Wilkinson’s poems invite you to sit down at the kitchen table and listen and savor each one.
July 25, 2022
A new collection of essays, poems and stories from Kentucky author Crystal Wilkinson.
My favorites are O Tobacco, Dig If You Will the Picture, Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts and Motherland.
Also included are beautiful illustrations by Wilkinson's partner Ron Davis.
My favorites are O Tobacco, Dig If You Will the Picture, Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts and Motherland.
Also included are beautiful illustrations by Wilkinson's partner Ron Davis.
August 25, 2023
Deeply moving reflections about womanhood, Black experiences, love, and rural roots. Wilkinson’s work is everything I love about poetry: it captures feelings and moments in time so powerfully that I am taken out of myself.
At times these poems then land me back in myself, and I recognize common experiences of being female and a Kentuckian. Meanwhile, she also captures how being a Black woman and a mother puts her in places and feelings that I will never know.
A work that sparks identification while opening one’s eyes to new perspectives is a powerful piece of literature. And that’s what we have here.
At times these poems then land me back in myself, and I recognize common experiences of being female and a Kentuckian. Meanwhile, she also captures how being a Black woman and a mother puts her in places and feelings that I will never know.
A work that sparks identification while opening one’s eyes to new perspectives is a powerful piece of literature. And that’s what we have here.
November 8, 2021
A beautiful collection/memoir by Crystal Wilkinson with stark, well-placed illustrations by Ron Davis. These brief pieces will punch you in the heart.
February 16, 2022
This collection serves as a beautiful love letter to Wilkinson's rural roots. As always, she writes beautifully, simply, and with so much soul. My favorite, "Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts" weaves a beautiful story about the cooks in her life, her past, and her ancestry. A lyrical ode to food from family kitchens.
Favorites
- Terrain
- Black rapunzel
- The water witch on invasion
- The water witch on reading
- O tobacco
- Dig if you will the picture
- The creek
- Dear Johnny p
- Mother's day
- A meditation on grief: things we carry, things we remember
- On being country
- Kitchen ghosts
- Coming of age
- Praise song for the kitchen ghosts
Favorites
- Terrain
- Black rapunzel
- The water witch on invasion
- The water witch on reading
- O tobacco
- Dig if you will the picture
- The creek
- Dear Johnny p
- Mother's day
- A meditation on grief: things we carry, things we remember
- On being country
- Kitchen ghosts
- Coming of age
- Praise song for the kitchen ghosts
August 16, 2021
What a wonderful, magical, heartbreaking, joyful collection of poems. Crystal Wilkinson’s voice speaks of time past, the present and the future. It would have been possible to read this collection in one sitting but I tried to space it out. To sit with her words. Highly recommend.
August 18, 2021
Beautiful heartbreaking truths. I took this collection in slowly, and I still need to read it again to absorb it all. Every poem is rich, and the whole book offers a deep experience I can’t recommend enough.
September 3, 2021
Perfect Black is a book of moving and heartfelt poetry with images that conjure the childhood and motherhood of a beautiful and creative writer.
I laughed and wept as I read Crystal Wilkinson's lyrical stories.
I laughed and wept as I read Crystal Wilkinson's lyrical stories.
August 25, 2021
LOVE! This book is stunning!
September 27, 2021
Beautiful.
A gift to poetry readers, folks interested in family, healing, resilience, stories... will read again and again.
A gift to poetry readers, folks interested in family, healing, resilience, stories... will read again and again.
March 21, 2022
I don’t often quote poetry in reviews because it doesn’t translate well, but here’s an exception, because it’s perfect:
“Imagine a girl, not yet trouble”
Hear me out. It’s preceded by a snatch of Negro spiritual—“Wade in the water [...] God’s gonna trouble the water”—and followed by the story of a young girl’s baptism. It’s the first line of Wilkinson's first lyrical poem in the collection (the very first is a prose poem, elegant in its own way, but for my money Wilkinson’s lyric, compressed sensibility is outstanding), and it pretty much immediately sold me on this collection. These six words, two bars of 3/4 time, musical in rhythm and sound, contain a world of sorrow. And I’m not just talking about that amazing line break.
We’re asked to imagine a girl before puberty, before—from the perspective of the male gaze and the mothers who force themselves into that gaze as a “protective” measure—she enters a time of such objectification that she becomes identified, to her community and herself, as sexual currency. We learn later in the collection what gauntlets of sexual harassment and violence Wilkinson survived (it’s bad!), but we get a glimpse, here, of what a young girl is before her community turns her into a siren, temptress, slut, or ice queen: a young girl. I found this line heart-breaking, and delightfully deft. The poem’s glimpse of baptism as a rite of passage initiating young girls into a man’s world is the gentlest punch in the face, and I love it so much.
And the entire collection has this delicate sensibility and light touch. It recalls a rural childhood in Kentucky and experiences that are essential to defining what it is to be a black woman in that space. “Black Body,” an eloquent prose poem (and one of the best I’ve ever read), is a powerful container for the grief, alienation, self-loathing, self-love, and compassion that exist together there, highlighting the limitlessness of fertility and creativity. Wilkinson’s movement between short-line lyrical poems and blocky prose poems is beautifully adept, and the shifts in register and form evoke both her complex inner life and the adjustments Black southerners have to make in tone and body language to live in the south.
Rural southern life is always connected to agriculture and kitchen scenes—prove me wrong. This collection touches both, but finds a home in domestic scenes at the stove, at the kitchen table, at supper. I loved “O Tobacco,” a paean to the crop that fed and clothed generations of families in the south. Effortless, trim evocation of the familiar (to me, a fellow southern Appalachian) smells and sights of barn lofts, drying tobacco, hard-packed dirt floors. But the kitchen scenes are where Wilkinson settles, watching her grandmother can, pickle, simmer, knead, chop, and fry. Her images are so crisp you smell them. These scenes stretch out on either side, as Wilkinson herself learns to cook, and learns how it feels and what it can mean to cook for your family, and as she reaches back along matrilineal lines, cooking under the watchful gaze of her grandmother and great-grandmothers, their ghosts both speaking and mute. These poems are philosophical in their treatment of enslaved ancestors (of whom she knows a few important bits and pieces), and the power she draws from their stories, but grounded in concrete movements and images.
It’s such a wide-ranging book, in style and thematic material, and it manages to really be excellent on every page. Please go buy this book (from your local indie bookstore)!
“Imagine a girl, not yet trouble”
Hear me out. It’s preceded by a snatch of Negro spiritual—“Wade in the water [...] God’s gonna trouble the water”—and followed by the story of a young girl’s baptism. It’s the first line of Wilkinson's first lyrical poem in the collection (the very first is a prose poem, elegant in its own way, but for my money Wilkinson’s lyric, compressed sensibility is outstanding), and it pretty much immediately sold me on this collection. These six words, two bars of 3/4 time, musical in rhythm and sound, contain a world of sorrow. And I’m not just talking about that amazing line break.
We’re asked to imagine a girl before puberty, before—from the perspective of the male gaze and the mothers who force themselves into that gaze as a “protective” measure—she enters a time of such objectification that she becomes identified, to her community and herself, as sexual currency. We learn later in the collection what gauntlets of sexual harassment and violence Wilkinson survived (it’s bad!), but we get a glimpse, here, of what a young girl is before her community turns her into a siren, temptress, slut, or ice queen: a young girl. I found this line heart-breaking, and delightfully deft. The poem’s glimpse of baptism as a rite of passage initiating young girls into a man’s world is the gentlest punch in the face, and I love it so much.
And the entire collection has this delicate sensibility and light touch. It recalls a rural childhood in Kentucky and experiences that are essential to defining what it is to be a black woman in that space. “Black Body,” an eloquent prose poem (and one of the best I’ve ever read), is a powerful container for the grief, alienation, self-loathing, self-love, and compassion that exist together there, highlighting the limitlessness of fertility and creativity. Wilkinson’s movement between short-line lyrical poems and blocky prose poems is beautifully adept, and the shifts in register and form evoke both her complex inner life and the adjustments Black southerners have to make in tone and body language to live in the south.
Rural southern life is always connected to agriculture and kitchen scenes—prove me wrong. This collection touches both, but finds a home in domestic scenes at the stove, at the kitchen table, at supper. I loved “O Tobacco,” a paean to the crop that fed and clothed generations of families in the south. Effortless, trim evocation of the familiar (to me, a fellow southern Appalachian) smells and sights of barn lofts, drying tobacco, hard-packed dirt floors. But the kitchen scenes are where Wilkinson settles, watching her grandmother can, pickle, simmer, knead, chop, and fry. Her images are so crisp you smell them. These scenes stretch out on either side, as Wilkinson herself learns to cook, and learns how it feels and what it can mean to cook for your family, and as she reaches back along matrilineal lines, cooking under the watchful gaze of her grandmother and great-grandmothers, their ghosts both speaking and mute. These poems are philosophical in their treatment of enslaved ancestors (of whom she knows a few important bits and pieces), and the power she draws from their stories, but grounded in concrete movements and images.
It’s such a wide-ranging book, in style and thematic material, and it manages to really be excellent on every page. Please go buy this book (from your local indie bookstore)!
November 6, 2022
In her collection Perfect Black, the reader is taken down the road of Wilkinson’s life and we are allowed to see her growth. Nick Finney reminds us that this book, “of poems and legends about ancestry, culture, and the terrain of a black girl becoming. It is a narrow and spacious terrain that enters the bloodstream of this black writing girl’s body early” (x). The purpose of prose writing is to tell a story. In Wilkinson’s collection, her prose helps the reader sit in the scene she creates.
A prose piece that I feel that stands out is, “Black Body”. This prose poem shows us the Black girl in the story, has found her voice. She starts this piece with, “[m]y black body is a boulder, a stop sign. Sometimes i think my body is a graceful, a song of freedom” (56). These starting lines show us how she is claiming herself and her body after the assaults she dealt with that we read in previous works. She uses metaphors to help guide and bring this prose story together. When she wrote, “[t]wice last week i went without eating, filling up on self-loathing & disconnect” (56), we can feel her feelings of her attempt of growth. This story she writes she isn’t only talking about her growth but the growth of the Black community. She mentions the death of Black men at the hands of police. with all the tough subject matter in the middle of this prose story, she uses a metaphor of beauty. “When i’m sick i want buttered sweet rice & a tender hand moving in circles on my back” (56). This shows how her growth is calm.
Prose work is meant to tell a story, close and tight lines, pull the reader in, less breaks to breathe to make sure the readers feel what the writer is trying to say. Wilkinson does just that, throughout her collection but specifically in these two pieces. The reader is reminded of the struggles of a Black woman and the beauty of Wilkinson’s personal growth. To read this vulnerable work is a privilege.
A prose piece that I feel that stands out is, “Black Body”. This prose poem shows us the Black girl in the story, has found her voice. She starts this piece with, “[m]y black body is a boulder, a stop sign. Sometimes i think my body is a graceful, a song of freedom” (56). These starting lines show us how she is claiming herself and her body after the assaults she dealt with that we read in previous works. She uses metaphors to help guide and bring this prose story together. When she wrote, “[t]wice last week i went without eating, filling up on self-loathing & disconnect” (56), we can feel her feelings of her attempt of growth. This story she writes she isn’t only talking about her growth but the growth of the Black community. She mentions the death of Black men at the hands of police. with all the tough subject matter in the middle of this prose story, she uses a metaphor of beauty. “When i’m sick i want buttered sweet rice & a tender hand moving in circles on my back” (56). This shows how her growth is calm.
Prose work is meant to tell a story, close and tight lines, pull the reader in, less breaks to breathe to make sure the readers feel what the writer is trying to say. Wilkinson does just that, throughout her collection but specifically in these two pieces. The reader is reminded of the struggles of a Black woman and the beauty of Wilkinson’s personal growth. To read this vulnerable work is a privilege.
April 19, 2022
(Trigger warnings for racism, assault, death, and physical abuse).
An absolutely beautiful book about a culture that is rarely talked about. It really opened my eyes to the beauty of the lifestyle and some of the struggles, with the book reading like a train of thought or a diary. This is one of those books where the writer spills their guts on the page, and it was made all the more powerful and touching for it.
I adored how they didn't just stick to prose or poetry, heck they didn't even condense it to a genre and, instead, allowed a mix. You can tell the stories were really written in the form they belonged in, Wilkinson letting the style and the subject matter speak for themselves. They were not afraid to play with form, metaphors, symbolism, and so on to fully flesh out their experience on the page, and I can not stress enough how wonderfully personal it made this book.
It's a short but content-heavy book that is definitely worth reading when you have the time.
An absolutely beautiful book about a culture that is rarely talked about. It really opened my eyes to the beauty of the lifestyle and some of the struggles, with the book reading like a train of thought or a diary. This is one of those books where the writer spills their guts on the page, and it was made all the more powerful and touching for it.
I adored how they didn't just stick to prose or poetry, heck they didn't even condense it to a genre and, instead, allowed a mix. You can tell the stories were really written in the form they belonged in, Wilkinson letting the style and the subject matter speak for themselves. They were not afraid to play with form, metaphors, symbolism, and so on to fully flesh out their experience on the page, and I can not stress enough how wonderfully personal it made this book.
It's a short but content-heavy book that is definitely worth reading when you have the time.
March 28, 2022
A beautiful collection of poems that shriek and whisper what it is to be a woman, a Black woman, a faithful, loving, mindful, independent woman whose understanding and invitation of ancestry and history are marked by recipes, fireflies, Appalachian topography, and Prince. These poems will let you dance and yell, salivate and tempt, breathe, cry, and remember. And then, you will wonder, why isn’t there more, but also, this will be enough for now.
The only issue I have with this book is that her grandmother’s recipe for jam cake seems to have inadvertently left out the amount of sugar needed…or maybe you just need to feel that rhythm and let the kitchen ghosts tell you when?!
The only issue I have with this book is that her grandmother’s recipe for jam cake seems to have inadvertently left out the amount of sugar needed…or maybe you just need to feel that rhythm and let the kitchen ghosts tell you when?!
January 11, 2026
I've been following Crystal Wilkinson's work since my college years reading: The Birds of Opulence, Water Street, and Blackberries, Blackberries before reading this one. Just like with her aforementioned works, Perfect Black is crafted very well. As a black woman who grew up in a small town, kind of rural setting, this book felt like the best parts of home to me, and I love that. The moments that touched on navigating and accepting one's Blackness and being Country felt familiar and made me feel seen, which is always a bonus in any piece of work. Thank you, Crystal Wilkinson for being the writer you are, the person you are, and the woman you are.
February 14, 2026
Trying to intentionally read more books written by African American authors especially during this month.
I think everyone should read the MOTHER’S DAY poem. Truly could be one of the best works I have read. Please read!!
This isn’t MOTHER’S DAY, but something I highlighted. It made me think of homesickness and being in the kitchen with my granny, aunt, and mom.
“I want the muscle memory in my body to guide me back across the back roads of Kentucky to Indian Creek and through the screen door of our grandmothers kitchen. I can feel it when I catch the right rhythm. I stir. … Taste. Remember.”
I think everyone should read the MOTHER’S DAY poem. Truly could be one of the best works I have read. Please read!!
This isn’t MOTHER’S DAY, but something I highlighted. It made me think of homesickness and being in the kitchen with my granny, aunt, and mom.
“I want the muscle memory in my body to guide me back across the back roads of Kentucky to Indian Creek and through the screen door of our grandmothers kitchen. I can feel it when I catch the right rhythm. I stir. … Taste. Remember.”
March 17, 2025
Honestly my low rating isn’t so much to do with the book as I’m really not all that used to poem books. I wanted to gift this one a shot and I did and for the most part I enjoyed it. Some of them were very special to me like ‘bloodroot’ and ‘Press’ they felt like they knew of my life and were calling to my soul. Others I felt I didn’t completely understand (even after a 2nd or 3rd reading) and perhaps I’m just not in the stage of life that would help me understand those poems, but they were nice to read all the more. I do appreciate you Crystal Wilkinson, thank you.
November 27, 2021
Beautiful verses about longing and childhood and memory and looking back and pastness of the past. And it is the language that will stay with you, linger, sweet-scented rain. A recommended read for everyone looking for the beautiful things language can do. The standing metaphors and giant imageries. my god! I found myself weeping, yearning to hold my childhood, the traditions, the women that came before me. This book is a gift, a parcelled gift. Crystal is a gift.
December 8, 2021
I'm probably biased because I grew up in the country, but this book reminded me of home. It captures the feelings of longing I have for my home state. The memories I've made with my grandmothers, the lightning bugs I caught with my cousins, of the food that's filled my soul. It's written beautifully and an easy read. It being in prose helps it flow pleasantly. There are some hard topics, but definitely worth the read.
September 13, 2022
I really enjoyed this book. I’ve heard of Crystal Wilkinson’s work and I’ve been following her work as the Poet Laureate of Kentucky. I love how she describes her life as a child in the Appalachia area.
It was like watching a master at work. She makes me want to be a better writer. I can’t believe this is her first collection of poetry. It’s clear that although this is her debut offering of poems, she’s been writing her entire life. Definitely worth a read.
It was like watching a master at work. She makes me want to be a better writer. I can’t believe this is her first collection of poetry. It’s clear that although this is her debut offering of poems, she’s been writing her entire life. Definitely worth a read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews