Miss Experience White: A Poem Cycle - Hardcover

by Milo Starr Johnson (Author), John Seabury (Illustrator)

Best fiction podcast gold award winner, Miss Experience White is an illustrated, surrealistic political

poem cycle about destroying the demon of white supremacy and dealing with white privilege.

The book version, with 20 full color illustrations in different styles by Berkeley artist John Seabury, is

designed to look like a children's book but made for adults. Using a variety of accessible poetic forms,

Johnson reveals how Whites like herself with deep ancestral roots in the U.S. might work through feelings

of shame, discomfort, and ambivalence to transform them into positive, constructive actions.

The dramatic podcast version won several awards in 2022 including a Signal Gold Award for Best

Fiction in a Limited Series and a w3 Silver Award for Cause Awareness in a Miniseries.

As described in the Introduction, Johnson began writing obsessively in 2018 when she saw what

Donald Trump was bringing out in many White people and the harm it was causing to so many others.

The Prologue begins:

"In 2016 / The reptiles ate my cousins / But that was Florida / I thought I was safe here"

In Part I, "Vision & Revelation," Miss Experience White clumsily summons the demon of white

supremacy, Tyrannosaurus Wonderbread, and his Pearly White Retinue, calling them out with the best of

intentions. In the satirical poem "Reptile Show," some of these monsters bear a resemblance to living

political figures-and one family in particular. These magical exploits lead her to a harsh and heroic

realization.

Part II, "Bonfire of the Ancestors," chronicles the roots and growth of white supremacy and privilege

in her ancestral lines. By purifying her historical awareness, Experience creates a clear warrior

consciousness to fight Wonderbread and win. Johnson spent months researching her own ancestry for this

epic poem.

Part III, "The Other Feast," begins with "Thanksgiving with the Whites," the familiar family fight

over politics expressed as a war of limericks. Next comes the phantasmagoric battle to defeat

Tyrannosaurus Wonderbread and his Retinue juxtaposed against real-life stories about othering and

recognizing privilege. Is the core of the White American experience a fundamental fear of change? Or

perhaps a seed of enlightenment demanding we evolve?

Read Miss Experience White to find out.