Say/Mirror

"JP Howard's debut collection, Say / Mirror, is a dialogue of history and memory, reflecting on and integrating vintage photographs of her mother, Ruth King (a fairly well known African American runway model in Harlem during the 1940's and 1950's) with snapshots from the poet's own childhood. This manuscript began to emerge when Howard gained access to a large collection of her mother's modeling photos, as well as some local Harlem magazine and newspaper clippings, and was thereby offered a window into her heyday, begging comparison to and recollection of a complex motherhood away from the spotlight. Here is a project that seeks to use poetry as both memoir and biography, alongside the evocative nostalgia of vintage image - a map from which Howard has pieced together the bright but uneven path of growing up in the shadow of a "model" mother."--