Description

An acclaimed poet reclaims her origin story as the queer daughter of a Muslim Nigerian immigrant and a Black American visual artist in this groundbreaking memoir combining lyrical prose biting criticism and haunting visuals

Hafizah Augustus Geter is a genuine artist not bound by genre or form Her only loyalty is the harrowing beauty of the truthTayari Jones author of An American Marriage

I say the Black Period and mean home in all its shapeshifting ways In The Black Period Hafizah creates a space for the beauty of Blackness Islam disability and queerness to flourish celebrating the many layers of her existence that America has time and again sought to erase

At nineteen she lost her mother to a sudden stroke Weeks later her father became so heartsick that he needed a triple bypass By her thirties she was constantly in pain pinballing between physical therapy appointments her grief and the grind that is the American Dream Hafizah realized shed spent years internalizing the narratives that white supremacy had fed her about herself Suddenly she says I was standing at the cliff of my own life remembering

Recalling her parents lessons on the art of Black revision and mixing history political analysis and cultural criticism alongside stunning original artwork created by her father renowned artist Tyrone Geter Hafizah maps out her own narrative weaving between a childhood populated with Southern and Nigerian relatives her days in a small Catholic school a loving but tragically short relationship with her mother and the feelings of joy and community that the Black Lives Matter protests engendered in her as an adult All throughout she forms a new personal and collective history addressing the systems of inequity that make life difficult for nonablebodied persons queer people and communities of color while capturing a world brimming with potential art music hope and love

A unique combination of gripping memoir and Afrofuturist thought in The Black Period Hafizah manages to sidestep shame confront disability embrace forgiveness and emerge from the erasures America imposes to exist proudly and unabashedly as herself

Includes a downloadable PDF of visual art from the book