Sequoia Maner
Sequoia Maner is an Assistant Professor of African American Literature at Spelman College. She is a co-editor of the critical-creative book Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era (Routledge, 2020) and at work on a forthcoming book regarding Kendrick Lamar's album To Pimp a Butterfly for the 33 1/3 series (Bloomsbury). Her writing has been published in Auburn Avenue, The Feminist Wire, Meridians, Obsidian, The Langston Hughes Review, and other venues. Source
On Coming Out at Seventeen
When on the verge of ripening into plums,
Some girls dream of sunsets & of other girls
Some girls dream of bursting beneath darkening sky
Some girls dream of her body as book while
Tasting the bitter of their own skins
When on the verge of ripening into plums
Plucked to be eaten or preserved
Through gentle pressure & a slight twist,
Some girls dream of bursting beneath darkening sky
Split to open center & amaranthine flesh,
Pruned back to unharmed parts
When on the verge of ripening into plums
In the middle of concrete cities where fruit
Coats pavement & smoke shadows the moon
Some girls dream of bursting beneath darkening sky—
Water her roots; Cut back her branches &
Turn her full-faced to sun
When on the verge of ripening into plums—
Some girls dream of bursting.
Published:
2021
Length:
Regular
Literary Movements:
Contemporary
Anthology Years:
2024
Themes:
Childhood & Coming of Age
LGBTQ+ Experience
Literary Devices:
Anaphora
a figure of speech in which words repeat at the beginning of successive clauses, phrases, or sentences
Extended Metaphor
a metaphor that extends through several lines or even an entire poem
Imperative
an instruction or a command
Repetition
a recurrence of the same word or phrase two or more times
Simile
a comparison between two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”
Symbolism
a word, object, action, character, or concept that embodies and evokes a range of additional meaning and significance.