Buffalo Girl

Buffalo Girl is a hybrid poem by Jessica Q. Stark that explores her mother's fraught immigration to the United States from Vietnam at the end of the war through the lens of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale. It is a feminist indictment of the violence used to define and control women's bodies, interspersed with collaged photographs and illustrations from old Red Riding Hood children's books. Stark creates an image-text conversation that attends to the wolves lurking in the forests of our everyday lives, burgeons with matrilineal love and corporeal rage, and censures the white gaze and the violence enacted through the English language.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 136 pages
Publication date: 01 June 2023
Publisher: BOA Editions, Limited

In these captivating hybrid poems, Jessica Q. Stark delves into her mother's harrowing immigration journey to the United States from Vietnam at the close of the war, employing the framework of the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale. Through a fusion of personal, national, and cultural narratives, Buffalo Girl emerges as a potent feminist critique of the violence employed to shape and dominate women's bodies. Interwoven throughout this intricate hybrid work are a series of collaged photographs, showcasing Stark's mother's black-and-white photography from Vietnam, skillfully and eerily layered over diverse natural landscapes—from lush tropical plants to dense forests and pockets of wildflowers. Additionally, several illustrations from vintage Red Riding Hood children's books find their place embedded within these pieces. By juxtaposing the moral conundrums of Little Red Riding Hood with her mother's photographic perspective, Stark crafts an image-text dialogue that sheds light on the lurking wolves that inhabit the forests of our everyday lives.

Buffalo Girl unfurls with a vibrant matrilineal love and a seething corporeal rage, while also censuring the white gaze and the violence enacted through the English language. Here, we witness an inverted portrayal of diasporic victimhood, where unwavering attention is paid to the burdens endured by women across the globe. This is a reimagining, a reclamation, and a pathway out of the labyrinthine woods.

Weight: 222g
Dimension: 177 x 228 x 9 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781950774883