Pecking Order
Nicole Homer
(Author)
Description
Nicole Homer's first full-length poetry collection, Pecking Order, is an unflinching look at how race and gender politics play out in the domestic sphere.
Homer challenges the notion of family by forcing the reader to examine how race, race performance, and colorism impact motherhood immediately and from generation to generation. In a world where race and color often determine treatment, the home should be sanctuary, but often is not.
Homer's poems question the construction of racial identity and how familial love can both challenge and bolster that construction. Her poems range from the intimate details of motherhood to the universal experiences of parenting; the dynamics of multiracial families to parenting black children; and the ingrained social hierarchy which places the black mother at the bottom.
Homer forces us to reckon with the truth that no one-not even the mother-is unbiased.
Product Details
| Publisher | Write Bloody Publishing |
| Publish Date | April 01, 2017 |
| Pages | 88 |
| Language | English |
| Type |  Paperback / softback |
| EAN/UPC | 9781938912726 |
| Dimensions | 9.0 X 6.0 X 0.2 inches | 0.3 pounds |
About the Author
Reviews
"Pecking Order awakens in me a desire to remember fear at its most immense: when it spills from our desire to keep close those we love, even as they grow out from us and into danger. Yes, it is a stunning portrayal of where the interior of motherhood and the nuance of race intersect. But, more than anything, Homer is a poet of sharp articulation of fear, love, and the small hums of comfort in between. More than simply poems, Pecking Order is also about the exhausting journey of being seen, black and in public. In grocery stores, on vacation, in rooms not your own. This is a stellar collection, one that speaks to every edge of an experience and echoes out, leaving a harsh and beautiful longing in its wake. "
- Hanif WillisAbdurraqib, author of The Crown Ain't Worth Much
"There are many ways to mother a revolution; Nicole Homer is a shining example. Homer demystifies the totem of mammy, doting nana and childless woman in the unhinging collection Pecking Order. Whether investigating blackness, femininity or loss, Homer's poems sever the reader's sensibilities teetering dangerously between love, frenetic self-(re)-discovery and comedic cynicism. These poems serve as a legend for how to raise human beings, when learning how to hold tightly your own woman frame. The excavation process causes both grimace & joy as each page unfolds and gifts the reader with sounds of children laughing, a new mother worrying, or the firm grandmother advising: 'the sweetest plum is the one on the verge of rot.' Nicole Homer is our Matron Saint of 'Mothers Bring Your Weary Self & Get Free or Laugh 'til You Cry' - and she didn't even apply for the gig."
- Mahogany L. Browne, author of Redbone (NAACP Nominee 2015)
"The poems in Pecking Order are electric with interrogation and revelation. Here, Nicole Homer navigates the cost & demands of domesticity and Black American motherhood with a fanged precision. What I love most about these poems is how incisive Homer's voice is, even at her most sardonic - she always lets vulnerability take center stage, confronting race and motherhood with equal parts ferocity and introspection."
- Rachel McKibbens, author of Pink Elephant
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