{"id":32,"date":"2021-10-05T19:18:41","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T19:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damarishill.com\/blog\/"},"modified":"2022-01-20T23:26:48","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T23:26:48","slug":"breath-better-spent","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/damarishill.com\/?page_id=32","title":{"rendered":"Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of\u00a0A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing<\/em>\u00a0comes a new book of narrative in verse that takes a personal and historical look at the experience of Black girlhood. Read Publisher’s Weekly<\/em><\/a>‘<\/a>s<\/a> <\/a>starred review of Breath Better Spent<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Breath Better Spent<\/em>, DaMaris B. Hill hoists her childhood self onto her shoulders, together taking in the landscape of Black girlhood in America. At a time when Black girls across the country are increasingly vulnerable to unjust violence, unwarranted incarceration, and unnoticed disappearance, Hill chooses to celebrate and protect the girl she carries, using the narrative-in-verse style of her acclaimed book A Bound Woman is a Dangerous Thing <\/em>to revisit her youth. There, jelly sandals, Double Dutch beats, and chipped nail polish bring the breath of laughter; in adolescence, pomegranate lips, turntables, and love letters to other girls\u2019 boyfriends bring the breath of longing. Yet these breaths cannot be taken alone, and as she carries her childhood self through the broader historical space of Black girls in America, Hill is forced to grapple with expression in a space of stereotype, desire in a space of hyper-sexuality, joy in a space of heartache.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paying homage to prominent Black female figures from Zora Neale Hurston to Whitney Houston and Toni Morrison, Breath Better Spent <\/em>invites you to walk through this landscape, too, exploring the spaces\u2014both visible and invisible\u2014that Black girls occupy in the national imagination, taking in the communal breath of girlhood, and asking yourself: In a country like America, what does active love and protection of Black girls look like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.bloomsbury.com\/us\/breath-better-spent-9781635576474\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of\u00a0A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing\u00a0comes a new book of narrative in verse that takes a personal and historical look at the experience of Black girlhood. Read Publisher’s Weekly‘s starred review of Breath Better Spent. In Breath Better Spent, DaMaris B. Hill hoists her childhood self onto her shoulders, together taking in the landscape of Black girlhood in America. At a time when Black girls across the country are increasingly vulnerable to … Continue reading “Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-32","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damarishill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damarishill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damarishill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damarishill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damarishill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/damarishill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343,"href":"https:\/\/damarishill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32\/revisions\/343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damarishill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damarishill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}