Working the Roots (PB) (2025)

When I think of the kind of writing that really moves me, I think of the elements present in Bennett's poetry: honesty about Black women's interior lives, clarity (because we don't have time to talk around a thing), and a mean metaphor. Amanda Bennett has written a poetry collection squarely rooted in the legacy of Black feminists like Audre Lorde, Lucille Clifton, and June Jordan: this is my favorite kind of poetry. The feeling present in these poems welcomes you in to experience the world as the writer does, where "black is a place we carry" and "difficult women are like dynamite." Working the Roots is a book everyone should read, if for no other reason than we all need a little vulnerability to survive this world, and each other.

-Ariana Brown, author of We Are Owed.