Person, Perceived Girl

PERSON, PERCEIVED GIRL is poetry collection that explores Blackness–specifically queer, Midwestern, disabled, and transracially adopted Blackness. Poems in this manuscript explore identity, lineage, and body.

“The theological underpinnings of the collection enliven our soulless American conversations of inheritance, race, and belonging. Vincent is writing from a ‘divine distance,’ from a perceived distance, but these poems are attentive, they are close, they ‘inhabit our prayers with cure and cry.’ PERSON, PERCEIVED GIRL is a glorious debut!”–Arisa White

“In a society defined by binaries, PERSON, PERCEIVED GIRL thankfully exists elsewhere. Vincent’s voice is youthful and wise in its lyrical examination of what it means to exist as ( )–to be simultaneously inside and outside the circles that define our living. The weight of a last name, the real love found in an honest eye, the trouble tethering of colonialism and religion–PERSON, PERCEIVED GIRL considers what defines a person to themselves and to others without bending to the latter will–the poet is too concerned with nurturing their own gardens, capturing the hours you may have missed: ‘I applaud their leaves for blooming unapologetically / as they unfurl – day by day.’ Unapologetically Black, queer, and disabled, this is a poet cognizant of time and resonance. And these poems bear the fruit of that awareness with a disarming intimacy.”–Randy James

“‘A body is a verb: closer to a kiss & closer to a reply’ writes A.A. Vincent in a series of poems that explore bodies and their relationship to family, to social groups, and to the universe wherein a queer Black woman with disabilities adopted into a white family must learn the limits of understanding and love. The poems are deep and ask discomforting questions like why ‘so much of the world is in strife with its body & its soul/hiding sickness in its prayers for goodness.’ A marvelous collection for young readers as well as recalcitrant older readers. Lift it up and let it lift you up and change you.”–D.A. Powell

Poetry.