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My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter
I am 27 and have never killed a man
but I know the face of death as if heirloom
my country memorizes murder as lullaby
—from “For Fahd”
Textured with the sights and sounds of growing up in East New York in the nineties, to school on the South Side of Chicago, all the way to the olive groves of Palestine, My Mother Is a Freedom Fighter is Aja Monet’s ode to mothers, daughters, and sisters—the tiny gods who fight to change the world. Complemented by striking cover art from Carrie Mae Weems, these stunning poems tackle racism, sexism, genocide, displacement, heartbreak, and grief, but also love, motherhood, spirituality, and Black joy.
Praise for Aja Monet:
“[Monet] is the true definition of an artist.”
—Harry Belafonte
“In Paris, she walked out onto the stage, opened her mouth and spoke. At the first utterance I heard that rare something that said this is special and knew immediately that Aja Monet was one of the Ones who will mark the sound of the ages. She brings depth of voice to the voiceless, and through her we sing a powerful song.”
—Carrie Mae Weems
Of Cuban-Jamaican descent, Aja Monet is an internationally established poet, performer, singer, songwriter, educator, and human rights advocate. Monet is also the youngest person to win the legendary Nuyorican Poet’s Café Grand Slam title.
but I know the face of death as if heirloom
my country memorizes murder as lullaby
—from “For Fahd”
Textured with the sights and sounds of growing up in East New York in the nineties, to school on the South Side of Chicago, all the way to the olive groves of Palestine, My Mother Is a Freedom Fighter is Aja Monet’s ode to mothers, daughters, and sisters—the tiny gods who fight to change the world. Complemented by striking cover art from Carrie Mae Weems, these stunning poems tackle racism, sexism, genocide, displacement, heartbreak, and grief, but also love, motherhood, spirituality, and Black joy.
Praise for Aja Monet:
“[Monet] is the true definition of an artist.”
—Harry Belafonte
“In Paris, she walked out onto the stage, opened her mouth and spoke. At the first utterance I heard that rare something that said this is special and knew immediately that Aja Monet was one of the Ones who will mark the sound of the ages. She brings depth of voice to the voiceless, and through her we sing a powerful song.”
—Carrie Mae Weems
Of Cuban-Jamaican descent, Aja Monet is an internationally established poet, performer, singer, songwriter, educator, and human rights advocate. Monet is also the youngest person to win the legendary Nuyorican Poet’s Café Grand Slam title.
150 pages, Paperback
First published June 9, 2017
95 people are currently reading
3007 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 121 reviews
October 7, 2017
Interesting, powerful, at times challenging poetry. Worth a look.
April 29, 2017
One of the first things you read when you open this book is, "We are the stories we tell ourselves." Although this is a collection of poetry, Aja Monet did a wonderful job of creating poems that also could've each been their own little short story. In each she introduces us to someone, a time and a place that you get so interested in and don't want to leave and have to remind yourself, it's a poem.
The collection is told in 3 parts: Inner City Chants, Witnessing and (un)Dressing a Wound and each section holds its own with the last. Usually with poetry collections told in parts I have one part that I single out as my favorite but with this one I can't do that. I loved each part equally. If you've been on the fence of if you consider yourself a decent human being or not, read "the first time" and see what you think. You may have to reread it a few times before it sinks it. That one along with Shell Shocked are two poems that made me put the book down for a few moments because I could feel my heart breaking and began feeling overwhelmed with thought and emotion.
I think it's incredible that spoken word poets are writing their words for us to hold onto. You can hear the thunder behind Aja Monet's words in these pages. Her writing is fierce but never steers clear of heartbreak and grief but she still gives so much hope.
The collection is told in 3 parts: Inner City Chants, Witnessing and (un)Dressing a Wound and each section holds its own with the last. Usually with poetry collections told in parts I have one part that I single out as my favorite but with this one I can't do that. I loved each part equally. If you've been on the fence of if you consider yourself a decent human being or not, read "the first time" and see what you think. You may have to reread it a few times before it sinks it. That one along with Shell Shocked are two poems that made me put the book down for a few moments because I could feel my heart breaking and began feeling overwhelmed with thought and emotion.
I think it's incredible that spoken word poets are writing their words for us to hold onto. You can hear the thunder behind Aja Monet's words in these pages. Her writing is fierce but never steers clear of heartbreak and grief but she still gives so much hope.
April 24, 2019
Aja Monet (according to the bio blurb) is, among other things, a performance artist and this shows in her poems. When I read it that way, the poems (already excellent) took on an even greater life. Many lines roll with repeated consonants, waiting to be cried out.
The poems deal with race, loss, violence, and (last but not least) the power of love. The ultimate lesson I felt left with that simply "to be" was a valuable form of resistance to stultifying power that kills some people and renders many mute.
Over and over, Monet celebrates women, whoever they are, however they struggles, those labeled "bad" or somehow "wrong" as well as those succeeding, whatever that means, in love I suppose. She celebrates the fight for justice and freedom while never losing the individual woman's struggles to live and love freely.
I loved these poems both for their sound and their fierceness. Serious but also fun and fully alive.
The poems deal with race, loss, violence, and (last but not least) the power of love. The ultimate lesson I felt left with that simply "to be" was a valuable form of resistance to stultifying power that kills some people and renders many mute.
Over and over, Monet celebrates women, whoever they are, however they struggles, those labeled "bad" or somehow "wrong" as well as those succeeding, whatever that means, in love I suppose. She celebrates the fight for justice and freedom while never losing the individual woman's struggles to live and love freely.
I loved these poems both for their sound and their fierceness. Serious but also fun and fully alive.
July 9, 2017
This collection of poetry by Aja Monet is a beautifully heartbreaking whirlwind of locations and emotions. In the 76 poems, the reader travels around poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Brooklyn, upscale wealth in Manhattan, occupied Palestine, and everywhere in between. There are topics of race and racism, relationships, police brutality and targeting, diaspora, the cyclical nature of poverty, the necessity of education, domestic violence, food, love, and death. She lays out the beating heart of the children growing up in a world full of dashed hopes, the women who struggle to survive in the face of a society that doesn't seem to care about them, and cultures living at odds with each other in the same space.
The collection is broken into three sections - "inner (city) chants", "witnessing", and "(un)dressing a wound". The first grouping focuses on the experiences of growing up in a particularly poor and violence-prone area of Brooklyn. The normalized violence, the children growing up too soon, the parents doing their best in the harshest of circumstances, the crime that is a byproduct of this crushing life, and the ways that the poverty, violence, and crime are reinforced and proliferated systematically. In spite of a daily life that could and can crush the soul, there is beauty, music, love, and truth. The second section focuses on bearing witness to the social, cultural, and religious aggressions that affect women around the world and at home. The title of the collection comes from the last poem in the second section. In it, the author bears witness to, and celebrates, all women throughout time, from the era of woolly mammoths until modern times. Women have made the world, and by their work they are the measure of humanity. The final portion lays bare the pain and anger of and against women. Those things we want to cover up or cover over, that are unpleasant to talk about, the poet brings out to the wide world. The poems are loosely collected under these themes, but there is such a universality and timelessness to the themes that they really speak to any/all of these things.
My favorite poem in the entire collection comes from "inner (city) chants", and is called "limbo". It starts off with a child, living in a large inner-city apartment building, watching a boy who is dying after jumping out of a 17th floor window. The reader is lead to believe that what she's seeing could be part of a television program, until she gives you the lines "i watched his circulating tissue/soak the pavement/from up there in the sky - we weren't heaven/we just didn't have cable". The narrator goes on to describe the smells she finds in the building and uses them as a metaphor to introduce imagery for the treatment of the poor and minorities - particularly African Americans and Latinos. The narrator explains that, in her neighborhood, girls learn early that it's entirely acceptable and expected for men to sexually harass them, and the only thing that matters is what kind of attention their words give you. Essentially, men are in control of how women see themselves and each other - the locus of their identity is external and patriarchal-focused. She then spins from her young experience back to the boy who is dying, and is disgusted by the waste of violence and helplessness that ended his life far too soon. In fact, she is at his side as life leaves his body - "the i hope he knew that i saw the breath leave his chest/the amber divorce his eyes/the nike air force ones lay stagnant/after shaking goodbye/you have left/your mark, young man". She then uses this specific event as a leaping off point to discuss the relationship between humanity and spirituality, between living and surviving. She is hoping with all her might that the world she is living in is limbo or purgatory, not heaven. Because, "in heaven there is no need for blood".
I was completely blown away by the breadth and depth of the poems in MY MOTHER WAS A FREEDOM FIGHTER, especially considering this is a debut collection. The raw honesty of the poems is incredibly affecting, and don't be surprised if you have to put the book down at times to process what you've just read. The poet's imagery, rhythm, and wordplay are exquisite, and combine to incredibly powerful effect. It is essential reading. If you are a grandmother, mother, daughter, son, human living in the world today, you need to read this.
The collection is broken into three sections - "inner (city) chants", "witnessing", and "(un)dressing a wound". The first grouping focuses on the experiences of growing up in a particularly poor and violence-prone area of Brooklyn. The normalized violence, the children growing up too soon, the parents doing their best in the harshest of circumstances, the crime that is a byproduct of this crushing life, and the ways that the poverty, violence, and crime are reinforced and proliferated systematically. In spite of a daily life that could and can crush the soul, there is beauty, music, love, and truth. The second section focuses on bearing witness to the social, cultural, and religious aggressions that affect women around the world and at home. The title of the collection comes from the last poem in the second section. In it, the author bears witness to, and celebrates, all women throughout time, from the era of woolly mammoths until modern times. Women have made the world, and by their work they are the measure of humanity. The final portion lays bare the pain and anger of and against women. Those things we want to cover up or cover over, that are unpleasant to talk about, the poet brings out to the wide world. The poems are loosely collected under these themes, but there is such a universality and timelessness to the themes that they really speak to any/all of these things.
My favorite poem in the entire collection comes from "inner (city) chants", and is called "limbo". It starts off with a child, living in a large inner-city apartment building, watching a boy who is dying after jumping out of a 17th floor window. The reader is lead to believe that what she's seeing could be part of a television program, until she gives you the lines "i watched his circulating tissue/soak the pavement/from up there in the sky - we weren't heaven/we just didn't have cable". The narrator goes on to describe the smells she finds in the building and uses them as a metaphor to introduce imagery for the treatment of the poor and minorities - particularly African Americans and Latinos. The narrator explains that, in her neighborhood, girls learn early that it's entirely acceptable and expected for men to sexually harass them, and the only thing that matters is what kind of attention their words give you. Essentially, men are in control of how women see themselves and each other - the locus of their identity is external and patriarchal-focused. She then spins from her young experience back to the boy who is dying, and is disgusted by the waste of violence and helplessness that ended his life far too soon. In fact, she is at his side as life leaves his body - "the i hope he knew that i saw the breath leave his chest/the amber divorce his eyes/the nike air force ones lay stagnant/after shaking goodbye/you have left/your mark, young man". She then uses this specific event as a leaping off point to discuss the relationship between humanity and spirituality, between living and surviving. She is hoping with all her might that the world she is living in is limbo or purgatory, not heaven. Because, "in heaven there is no need for blood".
I was completely blown away by the breadth and depth of the poems in MY MOTHER WAS A FREEDOM FIGHTER, especially considering this is a debut collection. The raw honesty of the poems is incredibly affecting, and don't be surprised if you have to put the book down at times to process what you've just read. The poet's imagery, rhythm, and wordplay are exquisite, and combine to incredibly powerful effect. It is essential reading. If you are a grandmother, mother, daughter, son, human living in the world today, you need to read this.
September 8, 2020
I started to read this so long ago, but it's hard for me to find the mood to sit still and read poetry and be in my feels. Luckily, I did this trick where I found a video of Aja Monet reading some of the poems in the book and I read along with her, pausing to read by myself the ones she didn't pick.
I was fortunate enough to be at Monet's reading in Bucharest a couple of years ago, a reading that made me cry and made me feel angry and made me feel hopeful and I can't find a better way to describe this book.
It's intensely personal and intensely political and the poems even go to pretty radical and challenging places, which... I want more of. Like the poem that is fiercely compassionate about her grandma leaving her kids behind to escape Cuba. Or the one about Christopher Dorner ('whistleblower'), the black cop who wrote a manifesto against the police and then shot some police officers and some family members. It's a hugely complex situation that the media simplified (obvs), but one that's evidently ripe for poetry.
So it worked soooo well for me, the personal, the political and I loved the third part of it the most, about wounds and healing. I mentioned some poems in the notes. Here are some more I loved: 'solidarity', 'Nehanda taught me', 'is that all you got', 'unhurt', 'the giving tree' and 'I say I love you'. My favorite one has to be 'selah' though, it's a wonderful love poem and watching Monet reading it, I first got the goosebumps pretty bad and then I cried. It's just that good.
I was fortunate enough to be at Monet's reading in Bucharest a couple of years ago, a reading that made me cry and made me feel angry and made me feel hopeful and I can't find a better way to describe this book.
It's intensely personal and intensely political and the poems even go to pretty radical and challenging places, which... I want more of. Like the poem that is fiercely compassionate about her grandma leaving her kids behind to escape Cuba. Or the one about Christopher Dorner ('whistleblower'), the black cop who wrote a manifesto against the police and then shot some police officers and some family members. It's a hugely complex situation that the media simplified (obvs), but one that's evidently ripe for poetry.
So it worked soooo well for me, the personal, the political and I loved the third part of it the most, about wounds and healing. I mentioned some poems in the notes. Here are some more I loved: 'solidarity', 'Nehanda taught me', 'is that all you got', 'unhurt', 'the giving tree' and 'I say I love you'. My favorite one has to be 'selah' though, it's a wonderful love poem and watching Monet reading it, I first got the goosebumps pretty bad and then I cried. It's just that good.
April 23, 2018
Alla som vill bedriva en intersektionell feminism ska läsa Aja Monet. Man känner orden; den berättigade ilskan, kärleken och kampen, i sin kropp när man läser Monets dikter.
April 15, 2019
Aja's poems nourish you in that "stick to your ribs" sorta way. Some days I digested them slowly, while other days I devoured them as quickly as I skimmed the page. She had me thinking about poems long after I read them, imagining Aja's world and wondering about her inspirations. She had me thinking about a revolution. She had me thinking about home girls I've shared space + stories with. She had me thinking about the women around me who had revolution brewing in and around them just by surviving + defying the odds. Her beautiful way with words painted vivid pictures, taught lessons, inspired, and filled me with hope. Loved!
September 10, 2024
I just figured out there’s no way to export highlights from Hoopla so I’ll have to do that tomorrow at work using a browser. I took the time to type some of them out over the last month that I’d been reading this. It shouldn’t have taken so long but I always read my physical or kindle book up till the muscle relaxers started kicking in, and I’ve found that in order for me to read poetry, and at least try to understand it, I need to focus, read it through silently once, and another time aloud if necessary - which in most cases it is.
The witnessing section was the most powerful to me. I think I ought to get a copy of the book, maybe it’ll hit even harder to hold a real copy in my hands. The last part of “Undressing a Wound” focused a lot on love, some sex, and it wasn’t really for me but the last couple were top tier material. I do feel I’ve gotten something, or several things, from Aja’s words. After I get my highlights, I’ll go back and read all the poems I saved stuff from again; maybe several times.
It’s a good feeling to have made it through a collection of poetry and knowing I’ve understood at least some of it. That may seem strange to many, why bother reading a format or type of writing if you aren’t a fan, but I WANT to be moved by it, I WANT to understand it, I WANT to enjoy it.
——————
I’m trying to only read a few a night but now that I’m in the Witnessing section it’s like a freight train, picking up more and more speed. The anger in these poems speak to me, even if my anger is from different places.
——————
may we be our vibrantly crazy,
hysterical, and moon-sick selves.
——————
(the labor movement)
i never met a woman who wasn’t
fighting for freedom
an entire life
to trust
what truth
reveals
——————
(inner [city] chants)
we are the stories
we tell
ourselves
--
there’s a way around the system,
just ask the right questions
never take no for an answer
--
we live to die in rooms with people afraid to visit them
——————
(witnessing)
how we marchin against warfare
with chopped feet
deaf ears and no voice
to speak
they take our freedoms
then our minds
and our rights
to bleed
-- -- --
mothers raise their children to become flowers
but then become their weeds
-- -- --
we pass our failures
onto our youth and expect them
to follow the lead
-- -- --
cooing and whisper
we speak from our graves
cuz our freedom of speech
is buried and encaged
in the prisons they breed
the world
-- -- --
i will never fully understand. what’s a poem
to a prison anyhow? i cannot write the laws away
where’s the get out of jail free card
when the punishment don’t fit the crime and our families
do time for lazy politicians and crooked police?
-- -- --
that day no matter what
a sister did to show her love
she couldn’t make a boy no man
he wasn’t bent on becoming
-- -- --
all the bright and magic that dims
the light lowers
the bright and magic dims
being policed for being
too poor
too much a shade
a color
-- -- --
death is never justice
is only justice
at the hands of
the powerful and mighty
-- -- --
i’m just doing my job
is not an answer or solution or remedy
is not what you say
is not how you respond
is not professional or kind or noble
is not a prayer or lending a hand
is not a sermon
is not a law
is not an offering
is not altruistic or people-spirited
is not protecting
is not comforting
is not listening or seeing or doing
is not enuff
just doing my job
is not a being
——
there are no gods
in America
unless of course
your god
is green and greedy
complicit and complacent
compliant and easily compromised
…
so you mean to
tell me
you worship
your heart
or your Jesus
or your Allah
or your Jehovah
are you sure
there isn't something else
guiding you each day out the door
——————
([un]dressing a wound)
radically loving each other
is the only everything
worth anything
-- -- --
we protest to empower personhood
more than mourning, we roar
be not discouraged, be not dismayed
be defiant and deliberate
always, be.
-- -- --
…She fears I might be
willing to die rather
than settle for less
than the best of loving.
-Cherríe Moraga
The witnessing section was the most powerful to me. I think I ought to get a copy of the book, maybe it’ll hit even harder to hold a real copy in my hands. The last part of “Undressing a Wound” focused a lot on love, some sex, and it wasn’t really for me but the last couple were top tier material. I do feel I’ve gotten something, or several things, from Aja’s words. After I get my highlights, I’ll go back and read all the poems I saved stuff from again; maybe several times.
It’s a good feeling to have made it through a collection of poetry and knowing I’ve understood at least some of it. That may seem strange to many, why bother reading a format or type of writing if you aren’t a fan, but I WANT to be moved by it, I WANT to understand it, I WANT to enjoy it.
——————
I’m trying to only read a few a night but now that I’m in the Witnessing section it’s like a freight train, picking up more and more speed. The anger in these poems speak to me, even if my anger is from different places.
——————
may we be our vibrantly crazy,
hysterical, and moon-sick selves.
——————
(the labor movement)
i never met a woman who wasn’t
fighting for freedom
an entire life
to trust
what truth
reveals
——————
(inner [city] chants)
we are the stories
we tell
ourselves
--
there’s a way around the system,
just ask the right questions
never take no for an answer
--
we live to die in rooms with people afraid to visit them
——————
(witnessing)
how we marchin against warfare
with chopped feet
deaf ears and no voice
to speak
they take our freedoms
then our minds
and our rights
to bleed
-- -- --
mothers raise their children to become flowers
but then become their weeds
-- -- --
we pass our failures
onto our youth and expect them
to follow the lead
-- -- --
cooing and whisper
we speak from our graves
cuz our freedom of speech
is buried and encaged
in the prisons they breed
the world
-- -- --
i will never fully understand. what’s a poem
to a prison anyhow? i cannot write the laws away
where’s the get out of jail free card
when the punishment don’t fit the crime and our families
do time for lazy politicians and crooked police?
-- -- --
that day no matter what
a sister did to show her love
she couldn’t make a boy no man
he wasn’t bent on becoming
-- -- --
all the bright and magic that dims
the light lowers
the bright and magic dims
being policed for being
too poor
too much a shade
a color
-- -- --
death is never justice
is only justice
at the hands of
the powerful and mighty
-- -- --
i’m just doing my job
is not an answer or solution or remedy
is not what you say
is not how you respond
is not professional or kind or noble
is not a prayer or lending a hand
is not a sermon
is not a law
is not an offering
is not altruistic or people-spirited
is not protecting
is not comforting
is not listening or seeing or doing
is not enuff
just doing my job
is not a being
——
there are no gods
in America
unless of course
your god
is green and greedy
complicit and complacent
compliant and easily compromised
…
so you mean to
tell me
you worship
your heart
or your Jesus
or your Allah
or your Jehovah
are you sure
there isn't something else
guiding you each day out the door
——————
([un]dressing a wound)
radically loving each other
is the only everything
worth anything
-- -- --
we protest to empower personhood
more than mourning, we roar
be not discouraged, be not dismayed
be defiant and deliberate
always, be.
-- -- --
…She fears I might be
willing to die rather
than settle for less
than the best of loving.
-Cherríe Moraga
February 14, 2019
This is a powerful, gut-punching collection of poetry. Monet's voice is so strong and the lyricism of the lines in each poem sticks with you. I could almost feel myself swaying as I read along to each piece. And the images used throughout range from soothing to visceral, creating a natural roller coaster of emotions. What an absolutely phenomenal collection of poetry. I definitely recommend this to anyone, especially for writers who want to get better at the craft: this is a perfect example of poetry that moves. I'll have a full review up on my blog (link in profile) next week once I've let myself digest this brilliant work.
May 13, 2025
"i am a woman carrying other women in my mouth"
"witness your child die, and you become the demon, hurled to the Earth, manacled everlasting to who you are after"
"i wish you liberation in this life and the next...i wish you/i wish you/i wish you/less alone"
The backbone of Monet's collection is dedicated to girlhood, womanhood, motherhood, to existing while Black and Latina, and excruciating pain and limitless joy found in the intersection of these identities.
a beautiful, dense, and lyrical collection about radical love.
"witness your child die, and you become the demon, hurled to the Earth, manacled everlasting to who you are after"
"i wish you liberation in this life and the next...i wish you/i wish you/i wish you/less alone"
The backbone of Monet's collection is dedicated to girlhood, womanhood, motherhood, to existing while Black and Latina, and excruciating pain and limitless joy found in the intersection of these identities.
a beautiful, dense, and lyrical collection about radical love.
April 17, 2018
I am a recent lover of poetry - before opening Carol Ann Duffy's books I could not 'get' poetry at all. I now enjoy them very much, even though some remain inaccessible to me. This book skirts that line - I really liked the shorter poems, while the longer ones were harder for me to follow. I'm sure this is just a function of experience and taste, and that over time my poetry senses will be refined enough to allow me to savour this book from the first to the last poems.
June 9, 2022
Aja Monet has the gift of conjuring up very vivid images with only a few words. In this, her poetry reminded me of haiku. She is at times tender, at other times full of righteous indignation and throughout it all very aware of the burden history has placed on the black woman's experience in America. Thought-provoking, playful and moving, I very much enjoyed this collection of her poems.
January 28, 2023
Poetry is so personal. It's like getting a glimpse of the poet. These were beautiful and strong poems. I don't always understand all poetry, but I think that is okay. I did feel some connection to these. My life experiences are quite different than Aja's, but I still could feel these in my soul.
September 2, 2018
I loved these poems and felt almost every single one of them, but I really really could NOT deal with womanhood being so closely tied to the womb/motherhood/bodies. Those poems made me a bit uncomfortable.
Despite that, these poems were very political, very powerful and very relevant.
Despite that, these poems were very political, very powerful and very relevant.
September 3, 2025
not a poetry girl at all but some of the poems were really good. very impactful and descriptive. maybe i should read poetry via a physical book because the ebook experience didn’t really hit. maybe i need to try physically annotating
February 6, 2018
poems of pain, hope and social justice.
April 29, 2018
Excellent collection of poetry. It packs a punch too.
April 1, 2024
Every night I read this book I dreamt about it.
May 5, 2024
This is poetry that moves. Poetry that pierces with every word if one is willing to sit with her.
Has to be one of the best poetry I read this year.
Has to be one of the best poetry I read this year.
June 27, 2025
Aja Monet is a talent to behold. One of the best books of poetry I’ve ever read ✨📖
April 24, 2021
mystical, emotional, difficult, and such precise precise language— so many underlined sentences
November 16, 2023
poetry that really takes a different shape with each time you read it
February 27, 2018
This collection of poetry demands not just close reading, but immersion in the words and the rhythm. I read this through twice, and aloud, and listened to Monet's own performances of the pieces on Youtube (I would give anything for a recording of her performing 'the young'). It took a long time for me to absorb myself in this poetry but once I did I really appreciated the lyricism, beat, and emotion. It doesn't hurt that Monet consistently employs my favourite techniques of internal and partial rhyming in her work, and she commands alliteration masterfully. Like with Our Men Do Not Belong To Us by Warsan Shire, I feel like whatever I might write in this review won't live up to the brilliance of the poetry itself, so I'll just quote some of my favourite lines.
- from #sayhername
- from black joy >
- from we are >
- from sentiments of the colored women
- from the body remembers
- from logan square
[...]
woman of soft darkness, portal of light,
watch them
envy the revolution of our movement, we
break
open to give life flow. why the terror of our
tears
torment of our taste. my rage is righteous,
my love
is righteous. my name is righteous. hear
what i am
not here to say, we, too, have died. we know
we are
dying, too. i am not here to say, look at me,
how i
died so brutal a death, i deserve a name to
fit all
the horror in. i am here to tell you, how if
they
mention me in their protests and their
rallies,
they would have to face their role in it, too,
my
beauty, too. i died many times before the
blow
to the body. i have bled many months
before
bullet to the flesh. we know the body is not
the
end. call it what you will but for all the
hands,
cuffed wrists of us, shackled ankles of us,
the
bend over to make room for you of us, how
dare
we speak of anything less than i love you. we
who
love just as loudly in the thunderous rain as
when
the sun shines golden on our skin and the
world
kissed us unapologetically, we be so
beautiful
when we be. how you gon be free without
me?
[...]
- from #sayhername
joy is the will
is the dimple that has endured
a dance so deep in a dark cheek
[...]
is hopscotch and double dutch
a fierce gaze, the side eye, the shade
is the sass, snap, and the head nod
is the turn up, the swag
joy is righteous and ratchet
joy twerks and taps, jooks and jives
harlem shakes, electric slides, dutty wines
salsas on two and rumbas
[...]
joy is a crackhead with a dime bag and a
dream
is a fresh pair of white kicks with the check
bottle caps glued beneath dress shoes
[...]
- from black joy >
[...] solitude is
in the wrist of a magnolia tree, hung or
lynched
in a rose-throated croon of liberty and
justice for all
[...]
- from we are >
her eyes a voice
of verses in a
chapel songbook
where women sorry
stained sung of
the antiquated fight
to love and be loved
soft-hearted and peach-tea dark
- from sentiments of the colored women
[...]
the switchblades tripping off the ledge of
her mother's
tongue, chicken-scratches her insecurities
on the mirrors of her eyelids,
licks suicide off the plate clean like a
bulimic torn
between the God that promises heaven
in her stomach
[...]
- from the body remembers
there was never a right moment to speak
or laugh. when they pried my legs apart
fresh outta my mother's womb,
they should've told me, go back
girl, go back in and hide
take cover, they should've
warned me about the war.
instead of borrowing books
from the walls of my mother's
regrets, i could've been preparing
in her uterus, could've been studying
the proper way to load a rifle,
[...]
- from logan square
March 9, 2018
Wow, I'm lost for words here. This is the most beautiful poetry collections I've read in years. It's highly political, but it still achieves the highest literary beauty a poet can earn and offer.
My favorites are:
- the giving tree
- is that all you got
- the ghost of women once girls
- limbo
- when the poor sing
- the body remembers
- niggas in paris
- dark matter
My favorites are:
- the giving tree
- is that all you got
- the ghost of women once girls
- limbo
- when the poor sing
- the body remembers
- niggas in paris
- dark matter
August 27, 2017
This is one of the strongest and most beautiful collections of poetry I've read. Monet's power is in her repeated mantra: tenderness; this is a collection that sifts through pain to honor womanhood and personhood in the face of our collective social retreat from goodness. The poems are solid as they are flexible. As a reader, I feel connected to Monet through her life's tellings as well as through what is universal in what we all want.
January 8, 2018
This just might be the best poetry I've ever read. I tried to pick a favorite piece and I can't. Every poem is rhythmic and full of beauty, pain, love, defiance, despair, and hope. Read it now!
Some of my favorite lines:
"though our wounds were hidden, our healing was there, bright and brilliant"
"the emerald of ellipsis we the women who conjured and escaped"
"a man is only as great as the alter he kneels toward"
"you is blessed all up and down girl you are powerful in your wounding"
"don't talk to me of love if you don't know broken don't know what it means to break to still love to break to still love"
"we were inevitable and since then inseparable. I fell for your eyes before I knew what you mouth could do. We wandered inside the looking, silence dozed in a gaze that spans a lifetime, a landscape of gazing. We reached morning together, desire outlived its moment and we touched a realm without touch or time.:
"our sense of community goes deeper than who we inhabit space with, it is in the syncing of bodies that never touch solidarity is a witnessing, the risk, the power to act. It is in the radical fight to care, to nurture what in you endures."
Some of my favorite lines:
"though our wounds were hidden, our healing was there, bright and brilliant"
"the emerald of ellipsis we the women who conjured and escaped"
"a man is only as great as the alter he kneels toward"
"you is blessed all up and down girl you are powerful in your wounding"
"don't talk to me of love if you don't know broken don't know what it means to break to still love to break to still love"
"we were inevitable and since then inseparable. I fell for your eyes before I knew what you mouth could do. We wandered inside the looking, silence dozed in a gaze that spans a lifetime, a landscape of gazing. We reached morning together, desire outlived its moment and we touched a realm without touch or time.:
"our sense of community goes deeper than who we inhabit space with, it is in the syncing of bodies that never touch solidarity is a witnessing, the risk, the power to act. It is in the radical fight to care, to nurture what in you endures."
October 28, 2020
Aja Monet is my favorite poet of our time. She touches me with every word in her book. When reading I either feel a wound open wide for reflection or a confrontation with what I need to do to keep growing. She challenges me as a reader, and also nurtures my spirit. She is a mother to all who read her words. I laughed, I cried, and I wrote a lot while reading this book of poetry.
If you are at all contemplating on getting this, I promise it will be a book you will hold close for the times to come.
If you are at all contemplating on getting this, I promise it will be a book you will hold close for the times to come.
July 18, 2020
equal parts breath-taking and life-giving
November 27, 2020
Yes! What a collection of powerful poetry! I really enjoyed every word on the page! A must read!
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