Black Girl Sonnet (1)

Photo of the back of a black woman in green African clothing against a red background.

enigmatic girl looking at her crown
and blue magic and a thousand voices
beloved forever be loved unbound
hair as mahogany unfiltered brown
girls ain’t nobody girls got nobody

our mothers, red soled, holler resistance
eyes peeled and ready for love, toes planted
in terra cotta, they worship on knees
beloved be unadulterated
love, be explicit, when girls got nobody

life meant to tell you choose love like water
beloved forever be loved unbound
unfiltered explicit traditional
we mean to choose joy over everything.

BY Victoria Danielle

Victoria Danielle is a poet, writer, and educator residing in Houston, Texas. Her work focuses on the evolution of language as resistance for Black folks in the United States of America with a specific interest in exploring the connection between Texan ecology and generations of Black women in the deep south. She has been published in Lunch Ticket Journal, Eleven and a Half Journal, and was the 2019 winner of The New School MFA Chapbook Series in Poetry. She is a Professor of Reading and Writing at San Jacinto College.

Black Girl Sonnet (1)

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Black Girl Sonnet (1)

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