Black Poets
A list of poetry by Black poets recommended by staff at The Seattle Public Library.
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Playlist for the Apocalypse
In Dove's commanding first collection of new poems since her 2017 NAACP Image Award-winning Collected Poems: 1974-2004, she explores apocalypses in their many forms: climatic, social, personal, and political. -- Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Call Us What We Carry
The poignant and searching debut from Gorman, the youngest presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history, goes beyond the inauguration poem to consider the larger role of history, struggle, and hope in American lives. -- Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Essential June Jordan
Wide in scope and singular in their articulation of atrocities, Jordan's poems shine in this thoughtfully curated volume. -- Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: All copies in use
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Other People's Comfort Keeps Me up at Night
Parker plays with pop culture and personal history to craft poems of deep intelligence and quick wit. -- Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Collected Poems
Sanchez has lived a rich life, writing devoutly throughout. This collection serves as a testament to that life, inviting readers to learn to live more fully, and to protest, rage, and love. -- Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Such Color
Pulitzer winner and former poet laureate Smith (Wade in the Water) returns with an incisive collection of poems from her four books as well as 18 new poems that reproach ignorance and denial while championing a collective voice for women and the Black community. -- Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Waterbaby
A multi-faceted self-portrait of a Black woman in America crafted out of poems that take the form of blues songs, letters, stories, dreams, lyric incantations, language-driven fevers, even a music playlist. -- Poetry Foundation
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Mutiny
In the remarkable second collection from Williams (Thief in the Interior), the poet writes powerfully about masculinity, Blackness, selfhood, anger, loneliness, and love. -- Publishers Weekly
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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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
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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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
Format: Book
Availability: All copies in use
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