Because you were mine / Brionne Janae.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Janae, Brionne, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poetry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (88 pages)

Place of Publication:

Chicago, IL : Haymarket Books, [2023]

Summary:

In their latest collection of poems, Cave Canem Poetry Prize winner Brionne Janae dives into the deep, unsettled waters of intimate partner violence, queerness, grief, and survival. "I've decided I can't trust anyone who uses darkness as a metaphor for what they fear," poet Brionne Janae writes in this stunning new collection, in which the speaker navigates past and present traumas and interrogates familial and artistic lineages, queer relationships, positions of power, and community. Because You Were Mine is an intimate look at love, loneliness, and what it costs to survive abuse at the hands of those meant to be "protectors." In raw, confessional, image-heavy poems, Janae explores the aftershocks of the dangerous entanglement of love and possession in parent-child relationships. Through this difficult but necessary examination, the collection speaks on behalf of children who were left or harmed as a result of the failures of their parents, their states, and their gods. Survivors, queer folks, and readers of poetry will find recognition and solace in these hard-wrought poems--poems that honor survivorship, queer love, parent wounds, trauma, and the complexities of familial blood.

Contents:

Cover

Copyright

Contents

Against Confessional

I.

"Want and Love are Not the Same Word"

Nothing More Isolating Than a Body

I Called It Grace

For Devonte Hart

Herbert Von King Dog Run

Journal Entry: "he made me feel like a drug addict"

Another Black Elder Finds Me Weeping on the Subway

Dear Gabriel Fernandez

I'm Tired of Living on an Island, but the Current's Too Heavy to Swim Out

"Sometimes I Feel Like I'm Almost Gone"

"His Powerful Hand"

As Passed from Auntie to Auntie to You

Vocabulary Lesson

"Say It Wasn't My Fault You Suffered"

II.

Enthusiastic Consent

Here

Love Poem to the Motherfucker Who Broke Into My Apartment

Poem Where My Dog Is the Hero

Love Poem

Sometimes You Can Stare and Stare at a Thing And Never See What It Is

My Mother Reads Her Bible

"What Cannot Be Communicated to the Mother Cannot Be Communicated to the Self"

Pendulum

Before

Amen

Resurrection

III.

Self-Portrait with My Parents' Wedding Anniversary

Self-Portrait with a Line from an Old Hymn

When Spite Is the Only Thing That Feeds You

Dear Mother I'm Angry

Sometimes When I Grumble

Love Poem to Brionne at Sunset

Every Poem I Write I Ask Permission

Androgyny

My Mother Wants to Know I'll Still Be a Bride

Tuning

I Like to Wear My Mother's Clothes

In Search of a New God

Let's Pretend My Mother Says "I'm Sorry"

Joshua Tree

My Mother Fights for Every Last Dime of Her Mother's Refund

Geometry of Love

We've Come This Far by Faith

The Boundary

Against Mastery

Notes

Acknowledgments

Back Cover.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781642599367

OCLC:

1380467130