What Had Happened Was (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781478031499)

In her debut poetry collection, What Had Happened Was, Ther? Alyce Pickens investigates the complex structures of Black storytelling. Addressing topics ranging from Black life, popular culture, and history to individual encounters with emotion, love, and chronic disability, Pickens crafts and questions the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and who we want to be. Throughout, Pickens mines the formal structures and the play of Black English within the lives and afterlives of Harriet Tubman, Mary J. Blige, Li'l Kim, Breonna Taylor, and figments of our collective imagination. Her singular poetic voice effortlessly flows between what she knows and what she's heard and between everyday Black conversation and her work in cultural criticism and disability studies. Travelling at the speed of thought, Pickens explores a praxis of storytelling governed by the places where truths and fables kiss.

Author: Ther? Alyce Pickens
ISBN-10: 1478031492
ISBN-13: 9781478031499
Publisher: Duke University Press
Language: English
Published: 03/25/2025
Pages: 96
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.98lbs