Jasmine Mans "Black Girl, Call Home" is a stunning, powerful collection of poetry. There was a slow burning build up to each new piece. This collection was like a good pot of gumbo - there was a little bit of everything mixed up in this work and each bite was delicious with a new flavor.

My favorite pieces included but are not limited to "The Light", "Footnotes to Kanye", "The Little Mermaid", "Kill That Nigga Dead", "Sandra's Haiku", "Missing Girls", and "You Took Sundays". This collection has something for every one. So many themes ran through this work and they all resonated on a different level. Mans touches on police brutality, being black in America, being a Black girl in America, being a Black lesbian girl in America, Black family life, pop culture, hip hop, Louisiana roots, rape culture, and so much more.

This is a collection to read and reread because each time you will pick up on a different meaning or interpretation of each piece. I would recommend this collection to fans of Hanif Abdurraqib's "A Fortune for Your Disaster" or Morgan Parker's "Magical Negro".

In Black Girl, Call Home, Jasmine Mans delves into what it means to be a queer Black woman through a powerful collection of contemporary poems. She explores various significant themes such as rape, slavery, and police-brutality while also incorporating stories of family life and pop-culture references. This collection, clearly influenced through her spoken word roots, is incredibly moving and each page packs a punch. My favourite pieces are "Crazy", "The Little Mermaid", "Birmingham", and "She Doesn't Look Like Rape".

This was really refreshing to read a different kind of voice writing poetry than what gets much attention. I confess I"m a new reader of poetry, but I've always felt poetry can't be "reviewed." These are people's hearts, souls, feelings, and one cannot truly review them. So my review of this is that it's refreshing, it's an exposure to a different kind of person, a different kind of voice, and a window into the life and experiences of a young black woman witnessing the world around her. I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in this collection.

“Black Girl, Call Home” by Jasmine Mans is an extraordinary collection of modern poetry. Her ability to convey the pain, complexity, and richness of Black, queer American culture is evident throughout the collection. Many of her pieces are sparsely worded but that doesn’t diminish the devastating effect upon the reader. She is direct, often confrontational while simultaneously expressing bone-deep gratitude for those she loves. One of my favorite books of the year.