Black Diasporic Poets
Celebrate poets of the Black/African Diaspora with these collections selected by a librarian at The Seattle Public Library. (created March 2024)
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Vulnerable AF
The debut poetry collection from Grammy-nominated recording artist and slam poet Tarriona "Tank" Ball about infatuation, love, and heartbreak. (Publisher description)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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My Darling From the Lions
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)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Black Girl, Call Home
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)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Other People's Comfort Keeps Me up at Night
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 texts and we’ve given into a kind of living that prioritizes work, money, and power over justice, equality, and happiness. (staff annotation)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Field Study
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 100 works ranging from key authors to pop culture as it affords us a study on intimacy, race, and gender. (Library Journal)
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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Wicked Enchantment
“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 not fully appreciated during her lifetime. (The Washington Post)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Un-American
Geter's vivid debut invokes the pain of familial dislocation, illness, and death, exacerbated by the twin plagues of xenophobia and racism. (Publishers Weekly)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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DayliGht
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)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Finna
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)
Format: Book
Availability: Available