Member-only story
‘Black Girl, Call Home’ Helped Jasmine Mans Show Up for the Women in Her Life
The poet pens a book-length love letter to Black girls and women on our journey of discovery and healing
Spoken word artist and poet Jasmine Mans’ latest poetry collection, Black Girl, Call Home, is an invitation inside all the bitter and sweet moments that exist between the space of being a girl and being a woman. The crick in your neck after getting your hair washed in the kitchen sink. The sound of your colorful hair barrettes clacking against one another. The soggy feeling of your pillow after you’ve cried your eyes out after getting into it with your mother.
Some people might be familiar with the Newark, New Jersey, native’s work from her time as part of the Strivers Row poetry collective that featured artists like Hamilton’s Carvens Lissaint. It’s where Mans first began to accrue internet stardom via YouTube performances viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. It wouldn’t be until 2016, after her video performance of the poem “Footnotes for Kanye,” that people started to pay more attention to the poet.
Now, Mans is taking her writing career to the next level with her latest collection of poems that, just from the cover alone, will give readers a rush of tenderness and nostalgia.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Hanna Phifer: How long have you been working on this collection?
Jasmine Mans: Some of the pieces I wrote a few years ago. Building and piecing the collection as its own portfolio took us maybe a year and some change. However, some of the pieces did exist in my bigger portfolio for some time.
When were you approached to write the book?
Maybe about two years ago — I can’t put my finger on it exactly — but I had a different manager at the time, and I was telling the team it’s time to get publishing. It’s time to find a good publisher that could take me to the next phase of writing professionally. As soon as I said that, I got an email from my current agents who work with Folio. They saw me perform and wanted to represent me, and they felt like they knew where I desired to go for the next few years of my writing…
