Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat poetry collection written by Khalisa Rae

Khalisa Rae’s powerful debut poetry collection is sharp-witted, strong & unapologetic. When I started reading the verses, I was mesmerized by her ability to convey the pain & strife that black women face everyday. The burdens they carry & the sacrifices that have been made for generations.

I quote a portion of her poem “Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat":
“Your sun-kissed skin will get caught in a crosshair of questions like:
No, where are you really from?
You will be asked where are you from? More than you are asked, how are you doing?
Like this name, this tongue, this hair ain’t a tapestry of things they made you forget— the continent they forced to the back of your throat.
And that’s what they will come for first – the throat.”

And another from “American Made":

“Saying: I don’t see color means, I don’t see you.
You have made sameness another word for silent erasure.
I do not want you silent, girl. Not when there is still so much to say.”

Silence is complicity. We must stand up against bigotry.

I really wish I could hear Rae perform this as spoken word. This collection is thought-provoking, powerful, and raw. It is a conjuring of the ancestral, societal, spiritual & internal ghosts of the Black American past & the continued hauntings of the present.

I love how poetry can convey what books cannot. The emotions evoked are different.
Thank you so much Khalisa Rae for sending me a copy of your phenomenal collection of poems. This is a must-read. It’s powerful.