Mama Phife Represents: A Memoir
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About this ebook
Mama Phife Represents is an arresting document of the body’s lowest depth of hurt, from a poet and mother who suddenly loses her son to Type 1 diabetes at the height of his musical career. It is a love letter from a grieving mother to her child.
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
<p><strong>Cheryl Boyce-Taylor</strong><span style="font-weight: 400;"> is the author of five previous collections of poetry—</span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">We Are Not Wearing Helmets, Raw Air, Night When Moon Follows, Convincing the Body</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Arrival</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">—and a memoir and poetic tribute to her son, </span><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mama Phife Represents</span></em><span style="font-weight: 400;">. A VONA fellow and a teaching artist, Boyce-Taylor is the founder and curator of Calypso Muse and the Glitter Pomegranate Performance Series, and she has led numerous poetry workshops for Cave Canem, the New York Public Library, Urban Word NYC, and Poets House, among others. She lives in Brooklyn.</span></p>
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Mama Phife Represents - Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
Introduction
I hid my pregnancy from my mother. But, sneaky detective that she was, she found out anyway. Mom had been snooping in my things when she found the baby pills
(aka prenatal vitamins). She was the type of mother who knew better than you when to expect your monthlies. She knew if your period was late, if your heart was hurting, what boy was calling you on the downstairs telephone. I called her the pussy police. My mother knew all these intimate things about me, but was not able to speak to me about menstruation, sex, or birth control. So it’s not surprising that I was not able to tell her that I was pregnant, despite the fact that I was engaged to my son’s dad and that my family and I were making wedding