Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Maren Wiederhold
Categories
Poetry

DEAD GIRL CAMEO

M. Mick Powell

A Love Song in Poems

A dazzling docupoetic debut collection interweaving ripped-from-the-headlines pop culture herstories with the personal narratives of Whitney Houston, Aaliyah, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, and others, to interrogate celebrity, identity, sexuality, industry abuse, death, and the afterlives of stardom.

DEAD GIRL CAMEO, a provocative, dazzling, docu-poetic debut collection from emerging poet m. mick powell that examines ripped-from-the-headlines pop culture herstories with the personal narratives of Whitney Houston, Billie Holiday, Aaliyah, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, and others, to interrogate celebrity, identity, sexuality, industry abuse, death, and the afterlives of stardom. m.mick powell shares more on her thoughts and inspiration behind this collection in the attached author questionnaire.

In Dead Girl Cameo, m. mick powell closely examines the experiences of Aaliyah Haughton, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, Whitney Houston, and other notable superstars who died tragically too soon. How did these starlets challenge conventional representations of Black femininity and friendship, and forever transform the musical landscape? How were the artistries and addictions of these women of color impacted from surviving in the limelight and, often, in the very same industry as their abusers? How did the literal and metaphorical deaths of these Black women superstars establish legacies of Black queer femme existence and afterlife?

In stunning imagery and sensual wordplay using ekphrasis, erasure, digital collage, archival research, and speculative nonfiction in verse, Dead Girl Cameo traverses the intimate realms of superstars to reconfigure Black girlhood, survivorhood, femme friendship, and queer fandom.

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Book Published 2025-08-05 by One World

Comments

powell is a ferocious writer with an unapologetic voice. She explores how we treat our heroes, and what heroes do and do not owe us. The poems are odes to those we lost (Whitney Houston, Left Eye) and a reminder that we're all hiding pain. Moving and refreshing. A knockout.

Dead Girl Cameo is a revelation, returning pounds of flesh to our fallen icons with a lyric pulse strong enough to resurrect. Its pages reach through the mycelial network of Black queer girlhood, recovering the fugitive eros of their lives.

An orchestra of tenderness marks the brilliance of this book. mick is a star.

Through an innovative blend of queer feminist theory, collage, and docupoetics, powell pens a gorgeous elegy to some of our greats and revives them in perpetuity by countering their life's violence with a love that is pure, queer, and infinite.

This lyrical and haunting debut poetry collection follows the lives of music icons, including Aaliyah, Selena, Whitney Houston, and more. It reflects on the work they have done that impacted the author's childhood as a queer Black woman. These icons transformed more than just the music industry; their artistry shaped generations of fans beyond their time.

Dead Girl Cameo stitches many tender odes, counternarratives, and snapshots of Black girlhood - from the violence to the beauty of it - into the warmest protective quilt for its subjects. powell's formal and lyrical prowess make Dead Girl Cameo a propulsive and genius debut that I'll never stop thinking about.

Studded with perfect little jewels of looking, of feeling, of deep knowing . . . These poems haunt, and celebrate, and mourn, and, to borrow the poet's own language, invent 'other words for gold.' I adore this book, and I look forward to seeing its work in the world.

Dead Girl Cameo is not only an interrogation of the way society and celebrity culture fails girls, particularly those who are Black and queer; it is also a generous imagining of the lives that are possible when girlhood is protected and tended to.

In poet m. mick powell's debut collection, Dead Girl Cameo, the deaths of iconic Black female singers and musicians - Whitney Houston, Aaliyah, Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes, Billie Holiday and Phyllis Hyman - go beyond the headlines. Powell resurrects their vivid lives and artistry to paint a more humanizing picture of their legacy while exploring themes of sexuality, survival, grief and stardom.