“Crystal Wilkinson’s Perfect Black is powerful witch-work. In these cascading lyrics, Wilkinson casts her glittering net of protection over the bodies and hearts of every Black girl. The poet’s past self, ‘a girl, not yet trouble,’ is a dreamer whose desires—for love and intellectual play, for spiritual radiance and sexual empowerment—still carry sweet potency. Here, Black Rapunzel lets down her miraculous ladders of wisdom and vision, while Black grandmothers and church ladies transform into sailboats, safe harbors. Read this book and swerve, in Wilkinson’s ‘perfect cursive,’ along paths ancestral and deliciously strange.”—Kiki Petrosino, author of White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia
August Book of the Month – “Perfect Black” by Crystal Wilkinson
