Black Girl You Are Atlas: List 4

by Renée Watson
In this poetry collection, author Renée Watson explores Black culture and girlhood as the narrator grows up from age 7 to age 17.

This list covers vocabulary from "‌Black Like Me‌"–"‌Phenomenon‌."

Here are links to our lists for the book: List 1, List 2, List 3, List 4
20 words 14 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. spiritual
    religious song originated by African-Americans in the South
    black like cotton fields & soul-cried spirituals.
  2. brilliance
    exceptional mental ability
    she sees
    my black and is blind to my brilliance.
  3. despair
    a state in which all hope is lost or absent
    i am not just slave & despair.
  4. quest
    the act of searching for something
    i learn
    to live my life in the searching, in the quest:
    can i be Black & brilliant?
  5. minor
    limited in size or scope
    “It seems like such a minor change, black versus Black,” The Times’s National editor, Marc Lacey, said.
  6. capitalization
    the use of uppercase letters
    “But for many people the capitalization of that one letter is the difference between a color and a culture.”
  7. buckle
    fold or collapse
    He will not buckle
    under your plump legs once you straddle him.
  8. torch
    burn maliciously, as by arson
    Don’t think about the white-gowned men
    riding horses and torching the South.
  9. exalted
    of high moral or intellectual value
    Breonna, whose name means noble, exalted one.
  10. majestic
    having or displaying great dignity or nobility
    Love you because you were like every Black woman—
    so regular, so majestic, all at once.
  11. personify
    represent, as of a character on stage
    Around the way girl,
    elegance personified,
    let our love heal you.
  12. lament
    express grief verbally
    a song of lamenting & repentance.
  13. mourn
    feel sadness
    play the songs that have no words
    so our hearts mourn without influence.
  14. jubilee
    a special anniversary or the celebration of it
    there must be a gospel hymn
    for the valleys low & also a jubilee
    because there will be, has to be, dancing.
  15. audacious
    invulnerable to fear or intimidation
    sing loud the audacious melodies
    that make demands and keep promises.
  16. renew
    reestablish on an improved basis
    let the organ play its Sunday chords,
    casting out & cleansing & renewing.
  17. unpolished
    not carefully reworked, perfected, or made smooth
    Love yourself unperfumed & unprimed & unpolished
  18. blunder
    an embarrassing mistake
    Love all the embarrassment and all the blunders
  19. unpredictable
    not capable of being foretold
    Love how love is unpredictable
  20. haunt
    follow stealthily or pursue like a ghost
    And all I have is this history tied around my neck
    haunting and hyping me.
Created on Tue Apr 15 07:17:57 EDT 2025 (updated Thu Apr 24 11:46:20 EDT 2025)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.