Black Under

Ashanti Anderson's debut collection, BLACK UNDER, is rooted in the powerful declaration "I am black and black underneath." Through a series of poems, Anderson explores themes of trauma, humor, and resilience, navigating the linguistic and emotional scales that reflect personal and collective experiences. The book delves into the complexities of identity, marginalization, and visibility, offering a multifaceted view of oppression and empowerment. Anderson's work reclaims joy as a birthright, making declarations of self-discovery and agency. This collection is a profound examination of paradoxes within the human and societal condition.

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About the Author: Ashanti Anderson
Ashanti Anderson (she/her) is a Black Queer Disabled poet, screenwriter, and playwright. Her debut short poetry collection, Black Under, is the winner of the Spring 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition at Black Lawrence Press. Her poems have appeared in World Literature Today, POETRY magazine, and elsewhere in print and on the web. Learn more about Ashanti’s previous & latest shenanigans at ashanticreates.com.
The poem from which BLACK UNDER derives its title opens with a resounding declaration: "I am black and black underneath." These words are an anthem that reverberates throughout Ashanti Anderson's debut short collection. We feel them as we navigate her poems' linguistic risks and shifts and trumpets, as we straddle scales that tip us toward trauma's still-bloody knife in one turn then into cutting wit and shrewd humor in the next. We hear them amplified through Anderson's dynamic voice, which sings of anguish and atrocities and also of discovery and beauty.

BLACK UNDER layers outward perception with internal truth to offer an almost-telescopic examination of the redundancies—and incongruences—of marginalization and hypervisibility. Anderson torques the contradictions of oppression, giving her speakers the breathing room to discover their own agency. In these pages, declarations are reclamations, and joy is not an aspiration but a birthright.

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Available in the following formats: .epub

Price: $4.95 USD

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