Poetry

Blue Opening, Chet'la Sebree's brilliant, illuminating poetry collection, grapples with origins--of illness, of language, of the universe--as the speaker contemplates whether she, too, can be a site of origin through motherhood. Navigating chronic health...

From the award-winning poet at the height of his career, a book of personal and American experiences, both beautiful and troubling, touching on the generative cycle of loss and renewal Following on his exquisite Stones, Kevin Young's new collection,...

Shonda Buchanan weaves a prism of language, sound and light around and through the life of concert pianist, singer and Civil Rights activist, the incomprehensible Nina Simone. With this book, Buchanan is declaring this The Century of the Black Woman,...

Within the pages of Counting Descent a captivating coming-of-age narrative unfolds - that challenges, complicates, and ultimately enriches our understanding of lineage, tradition, and the multifaceted nature of identity.In the intricate tapestry of...

Steven Leyva's second collection of poetry renders beauty through a Black man's lens in a post-pandemic world populated with superheroes and characters from ancient mythology.In The Opposite of Cruelty, Steven Leyva's poems ask readers to see and...

A long-awaited, comprehensive collection of renowned poet and performance artist Jayne Cortez's poetry.Like the jazz rhythms that inspired and punctuated her practice, Jayne Cortez improvised her way through and across disciplines, bridging poetry and...

These sonnets were inspired by the Preludes of Chopin. Do keys matter? Do they speak to different parts of us? Inspired by the Preludes of Chopin and the piano solos of Art Tatum, these experimental sonnets seek to question timbre and tone. That's...

From J. Drew Lanham, MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient and author of Sparrow Envy: A Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts, comes a sensuous new collection in his signature mix of poetry and prose.In gorgeous and timely pieces, Joy Is the Justice We...

An incendiary literary work more relevant now than ever. "if anger were an ax/it would split me open/and if this is a sermon/let it be my granddaddy's sermon/my grandmother's foottapping/steady rocking/choir singing" --from "This Is Not a New Age" First...

In Ridiculous Light, Valencia Robin captures the everyday and the ecstatic in a voice all her own. Through poems that live at the intersection of history and experience, she captures the joys and tumult of being alive. She is a storyteller of the first...

Excuse Me As I Kiss The Sky is the third installment of the Rudy Francisco poetry collection. With every book, the author utilizes various tools and methods to excavate his experiences and find poetry in everyday things. Rudy believes that poetry can be...

Cleo Wade is a friend, community builder, and the author of the bestselling book Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life as well as Where to Begin. She has been named one of America's 50 Most Influential Women by Marie Claire, 100...