Somebody's Daughter

By Jasmine Games

Poetry - Paperback

WINNER OF THE 2021 SEXTON PRIZE FOR POETRY

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Double dutch, braided scalps, tender-heads, tears shed, bologna and white bread, childhood apparitions, buried dead, petal’s phenomenon: these are the images Games’ first collection of poetry leaves you with. With reverence for the confessional poems she wrote through the years, Games invites you to radically tell the truth through a lyrical reverie of remembering: “Do not forget the soil you grew in.” Somebody’s Daughter, the first full-length collection by Jasmine Games, is a necessary read for all those who seek to reckon with the facts of their life.

Jasmine Games (she/her) is a Black and queer spoken word poet and theatre practitioner from Houston, Texas. As a teaching artist, she uses drama-based pedagogy as a mode for self-introspection and positionality interrogation, partnering with schools and museums nationally. Recently, she produced, directed, and co-facilitated a ten week spoken word action-residency for high school youth, Courageous Cadence, which was celebrated with a final performance of shared poetry on race and gender (in)justices. She also partnered with GirlForward and The Blanton Museum of Art to co-produce, perform, and facilitate in Girl, Be Well!, a zoom interactive-play on wellness. She was a poet in residence at Black Box Writer Residency twice, where she initially published Double Dutch and earlier versions of Views from Wash Day and Winter Funeral, entitled “Over” and Dead of Winter. She is the 2021 Winifred Ward Scholar, awarded by the American Alliance for Theatre and Education.She holds a BA in English and Performance Studies from Texas A&M University (2018) and an MFA in Drama and Theatre for Youth and Communities at The University of Texas at Austin (2022).Wielding her words, Jasmine is fiercely committed to complete and total justice for marginalized peoples in our society, especially youth of color.

Powerful, lyrical work devoted to her truth. -Cornelius Eady, Sexton Prize for Poetry Judge andauthor ofVictims of The Latest Dance Craze,The Gathering of My Name, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; andBrutal Imagination, a National Book Award finalist.