Seattle Picks: Black Diasporic PoetsLike this list

30 items

• Thick With Trouble

  McBride, Amber

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  [P]oet Amber McBride interrogates if being “trouble”—difficult, unruly, powerful, defiant—is ultimately a weakness or an incomparable source of strength. Steeped in the hoodoo spiritual tradition and organized via reimagined tarot cards,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• This Is the Honey

  An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets

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  In this comprehensive and vibrant poetry anthology, bestselling author and poet Kwame Alexander curates a collection of contemporary anthems at turns tender and piercing and deeply inspiring throughout... this essential collection contains…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Chrome Valley

  Poems

  Browne, Mahogany L.

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  Acclaimed poet Browne explores the joy, pain, and power of Black womanhood in this exceptional collection. The individual poems are brief and often deeply personal, and themes of faith, family, generational trauma, coming-of-age, and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Daughter

  the Soul Journey of a Black Woman in America Having a Human Experience

  Davis, Ebonee

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  An introspective exploration of growth, healing, forgiveness, and self-love, Ebonee Davis's debut collection is a must-read for anyone and everyone having a uniquely human experience in an ever-devolving world. (Publisher description)

• Golden Ax

  Cortez, Rio

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  Cortez maps untrodden historical and speculative terrain in poems of stunning breadth and intimacy in this exquisite debut. Cortez, whose family moved from Louisiana to Utah following Reconstruction, coins the terms Afropioneerism and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Gossypiin

  Poems

  Imhotep, Malika Ra

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  A Black feminist hypertext that registers the feeling of an experience of the world in which the self is an unstable plurality continuously unmade. (Publisher description)

• Alive at the End of the World

  Poems

  Jones, Saeed

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  In haunted poems glinting with laughter, Saeed Jones explores the public and private betrayals of life as we know it. With verve, wit, and elegant craft, Jones strips away American artifice in order to reveal the intimate grief of a…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Best Barbarian

  Poems

  Reeves, Roger

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  The poems in Best Barbarian roam across the literary and social landscape, from Beowulf’s Grendel to the jazz musician Alice Coltrane, from reckoning with immigration at the U.S.–Mexico border to thinking through the fraught beauty of the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• stead.fast.sad.ness

  Ruff, Amelu

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  "this collection, stead.fast.sad.ness, is meant to be about uncomfortable pain, devastating narratives; that only. utter.truth & some light, a lot of darkness too, this is my story, my analytical metamorphism of becoming me, ameleword,…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

  Poems

  Shire, Warsan, 1988-

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  With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way towards womanhood. Drawing from her own life and the lives of loved ones, as…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Vulnerable AF

  Poems

  Ball, Tarriona "Tank," 1988-

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  The debut poetry collection from Grammy-nominated recording artist and slam poet Tarriona "Tank" Ball about infatuation, love, and heartbreak. (Publisher description)

• My Darling From the Lions

  Long, Rachel, 1988-

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  Founder of the London-based Octavia Poetry Collective for Women of Colour, Long debuts with a Costa short-listed and Guardian best-booked portrait of a Black woman's coming of age. (Library Journal)

• Black Girl, Call Home

  Mans, Jasmine

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  Mans (Chalk Outlines of Snow Angels) reframes the classic bildungsroman as a book-length poem sequence in this bold take on race, gender, and sexuality. (Publishers Weekly)

• Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night

  Poems

  Parker, Morgan

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  Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night is a powerful debut collection from a promising new and necessary voice. Parker’s collection is hyper-contemporary, drawing on what it means to be alive today when our phones autocorrect our…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Field Study

  Sebree, Chet'la

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  Winner of the 2020 James Laughlin Award, this second collection from the Black American poet Sebree (after Mistress) is part lyrical poem and part prose, a beautifully executed "collection of observational information" that references over…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• How to Carry Water

  Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton

  Clifton, Lucille, 1936-2010

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  The life work of Clifton (1936--2010) forms an incandescent prayer for self-determination in this vital selected volume featuring 10 previously uncollected poems. (Publishers Weekly)

• Wicked Enchantment

  Selected Poems

  Coleman, Wanda

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  “Wicked Enchantment,” which selects poems from the books Coleman published with Black Sparrow Press between 1979 and 2001, provides a fantastically entertaining and deeply engaging introduction to a poet whose talent and significance were…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Un-American

  Geter, Hafizah, 1984-

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  Geter's vivid debut invokes the pain of familial dislocation, illness, and death, exacerbated by the twin plagues of xenophobia and racism. (Publishers Weekly)

• dayliGht

  Marsh, Roya, 1988-

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  In a straight-at-you debut, she talks about being a butch Black woman, revealing a complex, hard-won sense of identity grounded in her physical being. (Library Journal)

• Finna

  Poems

  Marshall, Nate (Poet)

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  In four sprawling, intertwining sections, Marshall explores masculinity, the effects of community and familial relationships, and the role of Black language in imagining a livable future. (Publishers Weekly)