Black Poets
In honor of Black History Month, this list of poetry by Black poets was created by staff at The Seattle Public Library.
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A Fortune for your Disaster
This resonant second collection from cultural critic, essayist, and poet Abdurraqib grapples with physical and emotional acts of violence and their political context. -- Publishers Weekly
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African American Poetry
In this necessary and unprecedented anthology, Young (Books of Hours) collects poems by more than 250 poets from the colonial period to the present. -- Publishers Weekly
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(v.)
Using a reimagined alphabet, Anastacia-Reneé sets about taking on everything from love to cancer, monsters, growing up, growing into our bodies, and the ways in which even our bodies are not our own. -- publisher's copy
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The Complete Poetry
Throughout her illustrious career in letters, Maya Angelou gifted, healed, and inspired the world with her words. Now the beauty and spirit of those words live on in this new and complete collection of poetry that reflects and honors the writer's remarkable life. -- publisher's copy
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Dispatch
Weighed down by the “brutal choreography” of violence against black, queer, and trans bodies, the poet reestablishes buoyancy through will and formidable artistry. -- Publishers Weekly
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Travesty Generator
Like a ghost in the machine, Travesty Generator remixes programming codes and turns them to ruminate on the intersections of race and gender. -- publisher's copy
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The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks
By turns compassionate, angry, satiric, and psychologically penetrating, Gwendolyn Brooks's poetry retains its power to move and surprise. -- publisher's copy
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The Tradition
The searing third collection from Brown (The New Testament) begins with the luminous "Ganymede," in which Heaven is described as "that far terrain/ between Promise and Apology." -- Publishers Weekly
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How to Carry Water
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
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Collected Poems
This substantive and enriching decades-spanning volume charts the work of Dove (Sonata Mulattica)-a Pulitzer Prize recipient, former U.S. poet laureate, and Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal recipient-as she forged her legacy from a sharp, unflinching eye that skillfully turned history into collective memory. -- Publishers Weekly
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