The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta

PRIDE 2020 Book 1


There are so many good things I can say about this book!!

Let's start with the outside before we dive in. The cover art is beautiful!!!! And when you take the dust jacket off...it isn't plain. And the design is perfection.

The Black Flamingo is a book that will immediately drill a hole in your heart, burrow in and then begin to heal you and will forever be with you.

I don't pretend to know if this story is autobiographical but it feels like Dean Atta poured his heart and soul into this book written in poetry form about Michael. Michael is a little boy when we first join him. He lives in London with his mother who is white and Greek Cypriot. His father is a black man of Jamaican decent. He never tells us why his father isn't really a part of his life but his father's side of the family is very much in his life. His Uncle B loves and cares for him and he spends time with his paternal relatives.

As this deeply moving series of poems weaves into a journey Michael takes us along with him as he discovers who he is, what is important to him, who his people are, and what it means to be fully yourself the rest of the world be damned. It is the intersectionality of race and sexual orientation. It is impossible to dissect the different pieces of who Michael is because he is all of himself and no one part is more important than any other and make him the beautiful person he is.

We journey with him from the little boy who just really wants a Barbie, to learning that the color of his skin means people will make huge assumptions about him (there is an interaction between his uncle and the police that is visceral and timely), to the man he finds himself turning into when he goes off to University and finds a place and people who claim him and he them in all their beautiful imperfect perfection.

I am so grateful for the time I got to spend in this book. I am so grateful to have met Michael and Daisy and MzzB. I am forever grateful that Dean put pen to paper and his words were published so I could wrap myself in them and share them with my son. I can't wait for Joshua to read this. I can't wait to tell everyone about this. I can't wait for you to read this.

(Finished June 4, 2020)