Teaser Tuesday/Tuesday Intros: Hurrah's Nest by Arisa White

Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea hosts this weekly meme. The idea is that you post the opening paragraph (sometimes maybe a few ) of a book you decided to read based on the opening paragraph (s). 


Sister (from page 53 of Hurrah's Nest)

I selected your name from the tagged partition
in the Black Pearl taxicab. Shaquana, the one who defies
in permanent marker, you are bold letters among faded
ink-whispers of people afraid to make their mark too strong.

Born to us with six-pointed hands, newborn half fingers
planted with a seed of bone, a possibility of intricate cross hatches
and indelible strokes, an isotopic rising and dipping of terrain.
You lined with a person’s symmetry and pointed it right into their face.

On that night, your hands broke the hold Cornel had on me.
In my left eye, our mother is statue.
Her hands lack dexterity for saving.

He’s in my right eye, drunk and primed—
the man you’ve disowned as your father.

He chokes me into a silence that turns
everything purée, telling me he loves me.

My eyes focus on you, and you see I am in need.

Your scream cuts the silence;
you lift your arms and the vase cries down.
He releases me to catch blood and glass.

You flee for the police. Shaquana, your flight, my first breath.

Hurrah's Nest by Arisa White : A vivid and varied collection that addresses family loyalties, dysfunction, violence, and differences, Hurrah's Nest is White's imaginative and emotionally honest exploration of growing up the second oldest, first daughter of seven siblings. Childhood experiences are looked at with rawness, sensitivity, and crafted with precision: be it the cutting of her dreadlocks, mother's abortion, drug trafficking, or her sister's developmental disability, the language is tender and startling. Hurrah's Nest--from the confusion of our lives--asks us to make meaning and good from what we've bargained and haven't bargained for.