Banana Heart

<p>A STB Poetry Prize Selection (2023)</p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>When we think of the banana tree we usually forget the flower also known as the heart. It isn't a showy blossom; it is an odd appendage that you could miss if you were not actively seeking it. The poems in </span><em style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Banana Heart </em><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>exemplify that which gets overlooked in the context of race culture and the tourist economy. Mookerjee explores the social practices of travel sex and survival for queer people of color living in diaspora. This collection places an emphasis on form (ranging from the abecedarian aubade elegy and kyrielle to the nocturne ode and sestina) seizing once-colonial modes of writing and infusing them with erotic queer brown potential. </span></p>