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Book Review: Black Queer Hoe by Britteney Black Rose Kapri
Britteney Black Rose Kapri is author of Winona and Winthrop (New School Poetics, 2014) and Black Queer Hoe (Haymarket Press, 2018). Kapri is a 2015 Rona Jaffe Writers Award Recipient. Her work has been published in the Breakbeat Poets volume One & Two, Poetry Magazine, Vinyl, Day One, Seven Scribes, The Offing, and Kinfolks Quarterly. She is also a staff member for Black Nerd Problems and Pink Door Woman’s Writing Retreat.
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Review
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A Review of Britteney Black Rose Kapri's Black Queer Hoe
Britteney Black Rose Kapri’s Black Queer Hoe is a lyrical celebration of Blackness, queerness, and sexual liberation. Kapri’s collection of poems contains tweets alongside her words, reinforcing her complete experience in upholding a fight against anti-blackness, homophobia, misogyny, and slut-shaming. Kapri’s diction is uncensored and unapologetic, reinforcing the reclamation process each of her poems celebrates, and presenting the liberty in living a life outside of rigid boundaries. To begin, Kapri’s list poem “reasons imma Hoe,” is a sixteen-line stanza, offering thirty-four direct reasons for being a “hoe,” while refusing to be interrupted by any stanza-breaks. Kapri’s speaker uses an active voice, denying hesitation, and declining any more explanation needed than what is given: i fucked someone else. i was walking. he asked a question The poem defines what a “hoe” is by providing the reasons other people have given, and by speaking other people’s comments onto the page, Kapri’s speaker reclaims the word “hoe,” and the actions associated with being a “hoe.” It becomes quickly evident that the word “hoe” is spoken mostly by men who disapprove of the speaker, mainly for just existing. The speaker’s list is unafraid and precise: “i loved a woman. i / touched a woman. i left a woman. i fucked more people / than him.” Kapri’s list poem “reasons imma Hoe” teaches the reader that a “hoe” is predominantly a word used by someone else out of spite, and the word carries no real, defining meaning, other than to degrade women for living and enjoying life, as Kapri’s speaker reflects.
Similar to “reasons imma Hoe,” Kapri’s list poem “Queer enough” tackles misperceptions and misidentification of the speaker's sexual identity, reclaiming her queerness. In collecting receipts of unnecessary commentary from judgmental outsiders, "Queer Enough" is highlighting the absurdity in the remarks. The first line the speaker repeats shows the length of people’s commentary, illustrating the internalization of people’s judgements: “sometimes i think i haven’t loved enough women to call / myself Queer.” Making note of how people’s comments become internalized, demonstrates the insidious ways people police and dictate queerness, even when sexuality is known to be actively fluid. The list poem continues to build on more reasons, signifying the extent of the speaker’s feeling of imbalance with the self-identification of queerness: haven’t ate enough pussy. haven’t gone to enough gay Kapri’s list poem demands the question: if the recourse is to police people’s queerness, then doesn’t the judgement push people back into the ‘closet,’ forcing people who desire to express their queerness into heteronormative confines? Kapri’s “Queer enough” recognizes the fluidity and extent of queerness, accepting the backlash that comes from both ends of the sexuality spectrum, but with the rejection of fitting into either end of the binary.
Britteney Black Rose Kapri’s Black Queer Hoe is an immediate attention-grabber, capturing the reader through candid language and experiences. Black Queer Hoe is truly a celebration of existing, surviving, and refusing to be erased into the Anglo-heteronormative void. As Kapri’s speaker states in “a reading guide: for white people reading my book:” “this book isn’t an invitation. i am / not your therapist.” Black Queer Hoe proves that the interaction between reader and writer is only valid for those willing to listen to Kapri’s language and truth. Black Queer Hoe is for the reader ready to celebrate the life of everyone who identifies as Black, Queer, and Hoe. |
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Miguel is the Asst. Managing Editor and Book Review Editor for Jet Fuel Review. As an editor, one of his main concerns is giving a space to marginalized voices, centralizing on narratives often ignored. He loves reading radical, unapologetic writers, who explore the emotional and intellectual stresses within political identities and systemic realities. His own writings can be found in OUT / CAST: A Journal of Queer Midwestern Writing and Art, The Rising Phoenix Review, and Rogue Agent. He writes for the Jet Fuel Review blog in Not Your Binary: A QTPOC Reading Column.
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