Mama Phife Represents: A Memoir

By Cheryl Boyce-Taylor

Book Overview

Award-winning poet Cheryl Boyce-Taylor pays tribute to her departed son Malik 'Phife Dawg' Taylor of the legendary hip-hop trio A Tribe Called Quest in this intimate collection.

Mama Phife Represents is a hybrid-story that follows the journey of a mother's grieving heart through her first two years of public and private mourning. Told through a tapestry of narrative poems, dreams, anecdotes, journal entries, and letters, these treasured fragments of their lives show a great love between mother and son. Artist and artist, teacher and friend. Cheryl Boyce-Taylor's gift includes drawings, emails, hip-hop lyrics, and notes Malik wrote to his parents beginning at age eight. Both elegy and praise song, there is joy and sorrow, healing, and a mother's triumphant heart that rises and blooms again.

Mama Phife Represents has been awarded the 2022 Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry by The Publishing Triangle

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1642592668
• ISBN13: 9781642592665
• Release Date: January 2021
• Publisher: Haymarket Books
• Length: 136 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 8.9"