Black Don't Crack: Poems on blackness and mental health

By: Mutsatsa, Karen

Blurb
This is my little black book of rage and pain towards my African roots and white society. I'm not on anyone's side, as an African born, Black British immigrant, I think everyone is equally problematic. As such, I had some race-related things to get off my chest, so I put them into poetry again. Here are 28 poems on my 'melanated madness', about how I continue to love myself as a person from a self-hating culture (African), that grew up in a racist society (British). Excerpt poem, 'Stop playing with me 'fore I turn you into a poem' (page 44):

Family, society,
The evil deep inside of me.
On death, and life, and fantasy,
I write it all to find some peace.

Loving you, my soul to keep,
Drugs, and dreams, and nothing cheap.
The thoughts that make it hard to sleep,
The blood I bleed, the ghosts I see.

The waters, skies, plants, and trees,
Kids, beasts, my favourite beings.
Teasing you and sexy things,
All your wants I turn to needs.

A silenced voice that rarely speaks,
Just in art or satin sheets.
Sometimes it gets so hard to breathe,
Till I pop a (pen) cap, and then relief...

Contents

13. Why are you so angry?

16. African Child

19. Ebony

22. Bantu Princess

25. Asante Sana, Baba naMai

28. Protect black women

31. The black woman archytype

35. Jigaboo

38. King/Queen already

41. Lost and Found

44. Stop playing with me 'fore I turn you into a poem

47. Melenated Madness

50. The West, you do the most

53. Two can play that game

57. Refugee

60. At least it's not jail or crack

63. Freedom

66. Don't dread these locs

69. Ambition: the cure of the poison

72. Tough love

75. Cypher

78. Kill them before they grow

81. Black power(lessness)

84. For ghetto kids

87. Save me

90. Cypher 2

93. A King in Plato's Cave

96. Growing up in inner city London: tales from my childhood

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0D6NFG1B5
• ISBN13: 9798327396630
• Release Date: June 2024
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 102 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 5.5" x 8.5"