About this item
Definition of finna, created by the author: /fin/ contraction: (1) going to; intending to [rooted in African American Vernacular English] (2) eye dialect spelling of "fixing to" (3) Black possibility; Black futurity; Blackness as tomorrowThese poems consider the brevity and disposability of Black lives and other oppressed people in our current era of emboldened white supremacy, and the use of the Black vernacular in America's vast reserve of racial and gendered epithets. Finna explores the erasure of peoples in the American narrative; asks how gendered language can provoke violence; and finally, how the Black vernacular, expands our notions of possibility, giving us a new language of hope:nothing about our people is romantic& it shouldn't be.
About the Author
Nate Marshall is an award-winning writer, educator, and speaker from the South Side of Chicago. He is the author and editor of numerous works including Wild Hundreds, The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, and the audio drama Bruh Rabbit & The Fantastic Telling of Remington Ellis Esq. His next book, FINNA, is due out in 2020 from One World/Random House. He is an assistant professor of English at Colorado College. He has bars.
