About this item
A Netgalley "Must-Read Books by Black Authors in 2022". From the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing comes a new book of narrative in verse that takes a personal and historical look at the experience of Black girlhood.. In Breath Better Spent, DaMaris B. Hill hoists her childhood self onto her shoulders, together taking in the landscape of Black girlhood in America. At a time when Black girls across the country are increasingly vulnerable to unjust violence, unwarranted incarceration, and unnoticed disappearance, Hill chooses to celebrate and protect the girl she carries, using the narrative-in-verse style of her acclaimed book A Bound Woman is a Dangerous Thing to revisit her youth. There, jelly sandals, Double Dutch beats, and chipped nail polish bring the breath of laughter; in adolescence, pomegranate lips, turntables, and love letters to other girls boyfriends bring the breath of longing. Yet these breaths cannot be taken alone, and as she carries her childhood self through the broader historical space of Black girls in America, Hill is forced to grapple with expression in a space of stereotype, desire in a space of hyper-sexuality, joy in a space of heartache.. Paying homage to prominent Black female figures from Zora Neale Hurston to Whitney Houston and Toni Morrison, Breath Better Spent invites you to walk through this landscape, too, exploring the spaces -- both visible and invisible -- that Black girls occupy in the national imagination, taking in the communal breath of girlhood, and asking yourself: In a country like America, what does active love and protection of Black girls look like?
About the Author
In 2008, Dr. DaMaris B. Hill relocated from Baltimore, Maryland to Lawrence, Kansas in order to give greater attention to her creative writing. She has studied with writers such as Lucille Clifton, Monifa Love-Asante, Natasha Trethewey, Nikky Finney, Marita Golden and others. Her development as a writer has also been enhanced by the institutional support of the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Key West Literary Seminar/Writers Workshops, Callaloo Literary Writers Workshop, The Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities, The Project on the History of Black Writing, The Watering Hole Poetry and Furious Flower Poetry Center.Similar to her creative process, Dr. Hill's scholarly research is interdisciplinary and examines the intersections between literary criticism, cultural studies, and digital humanities. Dr. Hill is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and African American and Africana Studies at the University of Kentucky. For more information:https://english.as.uky.edu/users/dbhi222 https://aaas.as.uky.edu/users/dbhi222.
