For Black History Month, observed annually during the month of February, we asked our members—independent presses, literary journals, and others—to share with us some of the books and magazines they recommend reading in celebration.
Poetry
The Limitless Heart by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
Haymarket Books | 2023
ISBN: 978-1-642599-72-5
In this Firecracker Award–winning collection, Boyce-Taylor “explores questions of immigration, motherhood, and queer sensuality, among other themes.”
Sacrilegious by Chris L. Butler
Fahmidan Publishing & Co | 2021
According to Chris Margolin, in this chapbook Butler “brilliantly weaves his narrative style of poetry with the erasures of the rap canon to show how life can have you ‘reciting the soliloquies of Shakur more than the parables of Jesus’.”
Is There Room for Another Horse on Your Horse Ranch? by Cyrus Cassells
Four Way Books | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-954245-80-8
This poetry collection “is the apotheosis of Cassells’s work to elevate the mundane and the bodily to the exalted, his vigorous lyrics a routine ecstasy.”
On the Imperial Highway: New and Selected Poems by Jayne Cortez
Hanging Loose Press | 2009
ISBN: 978-1-931236-90-4
According to Maya Angelou, Cortez “has been and continues to be an explorer, probing the valleys and chasms of human existence.”
Sinister Wisdom | 2018
ISBN: 978-1-944981-74-7
According to Alexis Pauline Gumbs, this poetry collection is in “direct kinship with the blues technologies as poetics of Black survival.”
Village by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs
Coffee House Press | 2023
ISBN: 978-1-566896-61-0
This collection “examines how trauma reshapes lineage, language, and choice, disrupting attempts at reconciliation across generations.”
Knees of a Natural Man: Selected Poetry by Henry Dumas
Flood Editions | 2021
ISBN: 978-1-733273-43-5
According to Gwendolyn Brooks, Dumas’s work is “a testimonial to his own committed love, his own sharp perceptiveness and zeal.”
Dysfunction: A Play on Words in the Familiar by Pauline Findlay
Pink Trees Press | 2022
ISBN: 978-1-513695-64-8
According to Katherine Rowland, Findlay’s poems “travel to the cosmos, to hells both historical and of our own design, and to the edges of promise.”
You Don’t Have to Go to Mars for Love by Yona Harvey
Four Way Books | 2020
ISBN: 978-1-945588-56-3
The unnamed protagonist of this collection “encounters side-slipping, speculative realities testing her in poems that appear like the panels of a comic book.”
said the Frog to the scorpion by Matthew E. Henry
Small Harbor Publishing | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-957248-19-6
According to Joan Kwon Glass, this collection “takes brilliant, unexpected risks through reclaiming forms found in public schools: fairy tale retellings, pop quizzes, erasures, formative & summative assessments and a bingo board.”
A Map of My Want by Faylita Hicks
Haymarket Books | 2024
ISBN: 979-8-888900-97-0
Hicks’s second poetry collection “follows a nonbinary femme as they explore the sensual intersection of the personal and the political, a crossroads to which their sexual liberation brought them after their escape from a religious cult.”
A Jazz Funeral for Uncle Tom by Harmony Holiday
Birds, LLC | 2019
ISBN: 978-0-991429-89-9
Holiday’s collection “looks at the current state of the double and triple consciousness blackness in the West demands and situates its varied states and registers as chorus, as music, and call and response.”
Human Achievements by Lauren Hunter
Birds, LLC | 2017
ISBN: 978-0-991429-85-1
According to Laurie Sheck, Hunter’s “multi-vocal and achingly audacious mixture of poetry and prose effectively engages issues of imagination and documentation, memory and displacement, and the crucial, complex ways in which memory itself is like fire.”
Alice James Books | 2020
ISBN: 978-1-948579-13-1
According to Justin Evans, Johnson’s debut collection is “poetry of listening and watching, of being honest about the distance that intimacy bridges.”
Television Fathers by Sylvia Jones
Meekling Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-950987-54-2
In this debut collection, Jones is “simultaneously reimagining the past and reveling in the absurd contemporary—her gaze never straying from social inequity, nor from the personal scales of fate.”
Fallen Tree Press | 2024
ISBN: 979-8-986086-14-9
Lee’s collection “speaks of modern-day disconnection and loss of connectivity among communities and self.”
Four Days in Algeria by Clarence Major
Red Hen Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-636281-78-0
The poems in Major’s seventeenth collection “are full of holiday energy as the poet passionately affirms life, whether as he travels or simply in quiet moments of reflection.”
Evaporating Rage by Norm Mattox
Black Lawrence Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-625570-90-1
According to James Cagney, “the brilliant, concentrated angers of Mattox’s verse meet the indifferent cruelties of this world head-on with these pointedly eviscerating poems.”
Terminal Maladies by Okwudili Nebeolisa
Autumn House Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-637680-94-0
Nebeolisa’s debut collection “serves as an intimate exploration of the relationship between a mother and son and their emotional journey during her battle with cancer.”
The Postcards I Never Sent by Lyn Patterson
Black Lawrence Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-625570-80-2
According to Amy Kay, Patterson’s poems “invite the reader to examine the infinite complexities and the subtle nuances of relationships—with our communities, our histories, our loved ones, and ourselves.”
The Grace of Black Mothers by Martheaus Perkins
Trio House Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-949487-42-8
According to John Keene, this collection is “drawing upon the knowledge, wit, and wondrousness of Black mothers, ancestors, a boundless Black world.”
Graywolf Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-644453-04-9
The fifteenth-anniversary edition of this influential and revered work of twenty-first-century literature features a new preface by the author and new essays by Saidiya Hartman and Katherine McKittrick.
The Song of Everything: A Poet’s Exploration of South Carolina’s State Parks by Glenis Redmond
Good Printed Things | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-734584-47-9
Redmond’s collection “explores the enduring connection between the natural world and our internal landscape.”
Beg No Pardon by Lynne Thompson
Perugia Press | 2007
ISBN: 978-0-979458-20-0
Thompson’s debut poetry collection “describes a vivid world of Afro-Caribbean heritage and late 20th-century life.”
Wheatley at 250: Black Women Poets Re-imagine the Verse of Phillis Wheatley Peters
Pangyrus | 2023
ISBN: 979-8-986243-01-6
This anthology “celebrates the 250th anniversary of Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), by gathering the voices of 20 Black female poets,” including Gabrielle Civil, Danielle Legros Georges, Tracy K. Smith, and more.
My Afmerica by Artress Bethany White
Trio House Press | 2019
ISBN: 978-1-949487-00-8
According to Willie Perdomo, My Afmerica “forces us to consider the cost of history, brutality, racism, accompanied by documented facts.”
American Sycamore by Lisbeth White
Perugia Press | 2022
ISBN: 978-0-997807-66-0
American Sycamore is “an exploration of racial identity and the natural world, rooted in the mythopoetics of wilderness and ancestry as sources of trauma, grief, wonder, and tremendous resource.”
World Without End by Claude Wilkinson
Slant Books | 2020
ISBN: 978-1-639820-37-5
This poetry collection examines “the seemingly infinite spiritual implications woven throughout our experience in the natural world.”
I Am the Most Dangerous Thing by Candace Williams
Alice James Books | 2023
ISBN: 978-1-949944-52-5
Williams’s debut full-length collection “is a comment on writing itself. What have words done? When does writing become a form of disengagement, or worse, violence?”
Refused a Second Date by Maya Williams
Small Harbor Publishing | 2023
ISBN: 978-1-957248-16-5
According to Diana Khoi Nguyen, in this collection Williams “captures the relentless mundanities, mysteries, and social awkwardness that dating often entails.”
Monk Eats an Afro by Yolanda Wisher
Hanging Loose Press | 2014
ISBN: 978-1-934909-42-3
Wisher’s poetry collection “cracks open a blueswoman’s purse of poem and songs, bursting folk poetry for the millennium.”
Flood Editions | 2023
ISBN: 979-8-985787-42-9
According to Publishers Weekly, in this collection Wright “revels in the contradictions of language, mixing disparate philosophies and mythologies in a pressure cooker of lyrical skill.”
Fiction
The Wishing Pool and Other Stories by Tananarive Due
Akashic Books | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-636141-79-4
The paperback reissue of Due’s second short story collection includes offerings of horror, science fiction, and suspense and features two new stories.
My Lesbian Novel by Renee Gladman
Dorothy, a publishing project | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-948980-23-4
Gladman’s work is “a beautifully orchestrated dialogue between reflection and desire, or clarity and confusion, between the pleasures of formula and the pleasures of freedom in the unspooling of sentences over time.”
In Things Unseen by Gar Anthony Haywood
Slant Books | 2020
ISBN: 978-1-639821-00-6
According to Duane Swierczynski, In Things Unseen is “a novel about faith and belief, as well as a relentless page-turner that plays out like the greatest Twilight Zone episode never filmed.”
Hub City Press | 2023
ISBN: 979-8-885740-17-3
Hill’s debut short fiction collection “delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South.”
The Maroons: An Abolitionist Novel by Louis Timagène Houat
Translated from the French by Aqiil Gopee with Jeffrey Diteman
Restless Books | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-632063-55-7
The only known novel by Black abolitionist and political exile Louis Timagène Houat, The Maroons is “a fervid account of slavery and escape on nineteenth-century Réunion Island.”
You Were Watching from the Sand by Juliana Lamy
Red Hen Press | 2023
ISBN: 978-1-636281-05-6
You Were Watching from the Sand is a Firecracker Award–winning collection “in which Haitian men, women, and children—who find their lives cleaved by the interminably strange—bite back at the bizarre with their own oddities.”
Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden
Akashic Books | 2012
ISBN: 978-1-617750-31-1
McFadden’s fantastical historical novel featuring the spirit of Emmett Till “mines the truth about Money, Mississippi, as well as the town’s families, and threads their history over decades.”
Wanjikũ, Child of Mine by Ciiku Ndung’u-Case
Catalyst Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-960803-01-6
In this picture book set in the lush Kenyan countryside, “a young Gikũyũ girl helps her grandmother with daily tasks.”
Deep Vellum | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-646053-54-4
In this debut novel, Ross “tells a story of intergenerational change and conflict in a Black American family in the pre-Civil Rights era.”
Graywolf Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-644453-17-9
These thirteen stories bring us “into the company of the Collins family and their acquaintances as they meet, bicker, compete, celebrate, worry, keep and reveal secrets, build lives and careers, and endure.”
Parade of Streetlights by Itua Uduebo
Read Furiously Publishing | 2023
ISBN: 979-8-986119-97-7
Uduebo’s novel “is a captivating exploration of the millennial experience,” in which “Kola explores his adopted home of New York City and all aspects of his world with candor and humor.”
Now You Owe Me by Aliah Wright
Red Hen Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-636281-56-8
According to Jessica Jiji, this debut novel is “a crisply written, fast-paced thriller with meaning layered so deftly into the entertainment, you get a double bonus of social commentary and spine-chilling twists.”
The Lion’s Binding Oath and Other Stories by Ahmed Ismail Yusuf
Catalyst Press | 2018
ISBN: 978-1-946395-07-8
Through stories spanning the years before and during Somalia’s civil war, Yusuf “weaves together Somalia’s political, social, and religious conflicts with portrayals of the country’s love of poetry, music, and soccer.”
Nonfiction, Drama, and Multi-Genre Works
Her Voice: Hänen Ääensä by Faith Adiele
TRP: The University Press of SHSU | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-680033-59-5
Adiele’s hybrid memoir “weaves together diary entries, home movies, ichthyology, Nordic and Pacific Northwest mythologies, and YouTube language lessons to examine the legacies of trauma, class, politics, and silence on women’s creative lives.”
Beyond the Watershed by Nadia Alexis
CavanKerry Press | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-960327-09-3
This collection of poetry and photography “traces journeys to break free–documenting pain, making space for light, becoming a reckoning, connecting with spirit, and writing oneself into new seasons of safe waters, healthy love, and transformation.”
Dancing Between the Raindrops: A Daughter’s Reflections On Love and Loss by Lisa Braxton
Sea Crow Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-961864-08-5
This memoir in essays is “a deeply personal mosaic of a daughter’s remembrances of beautiful, challenging, and heartbreaking moments of life with her family.”
I Know What the Red Clay Looks Like: The Voice and Vision of Black Women Writers by Rebecca Carroll
Haymarket Books | 2024
ISBN: 979-8-888902-54-7
In this new edition of the 1994 book, Carroll presents its original conversations “alongside personalized introductions by some of the brightest voices in today’s literary world, including Donika Kelly, Safiya Sinclair, Diamond Sharp, and Chanda Prescod-Weinstein.”
Interficial ARTelligence: The Moments that Met Me by Chuck D
Akashic Books | 2025
ISBN: 978-1-636142-05-0
In his newest work of graphic narrative, Chuck D “presents his encounters with some of his greatest heroes and other public figures.”
In and Out of Place by Gabrielle Civil
TRP: The University Press of SHSU | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-680032-79-6
In this book archiving her 2008-2009 Fulbright fellowship project, Civil “explores—and expands—the parameters of her own body, artistic process, heritage, and culture.”
Angela’s Mixtape + The History of Light by Eisa Davis
53rd State Press | 2023
ISBN: 978-1-732545-29-8
The two plays collected here “are marked by [Davis’s] stunning intimacy with the praxis of music alongside radical change.”
The Clearing by JJJJJerome Ellis
Wendy’s Subway | 2021
ISBN: 978-1-735924-25-0
Ellis’s book “asks how stuttering, blackness, and music can be practices of refusal against hegemonic governance of time, speech, and encounter.”
Holy American Burnout! by Sean Enfield
Split/Lip Press | 2023
ISBN: 978-1-952897-33-7
This essay collection “wrestles with the physical, mental, and emotional burdens that American society places on educators, students, and all relatively conscious minorities in this country.”
Your Black Friend Has Something to Say by Melva Graham
Regal House Publishing | 2020
ISBN: 978-1-646030-18-7
According to Brandy Colbert, Graham’s essay collection “digs deep into the dangers of being labeled a token and the insidious ways racism creeps into everyday interactions.”
Particle and Wave: A Conversation by Daniel Alexander Jones and Alexis Pauline Gumbs
53rd State Press | 2021
ISBN: 978-1-737025-50-4
In this conversation, Jones and Gumbs “discuss love as a foundational principle of artistic practice and societal change.”
Mamas, Martyrs, and Jezebels: Myths, Legends, and Other Lies You’ve Been Told about Black Women
Black Lawrence Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-625570-91-8
Edited by Jan Boulware, Rondrea Mathis, Clarissa West-White, and Kideste Mariam Yusef, this anthology “revisits notions of Black womanhood to include the ways in which Black women’s perceived strength can function as a dangerous denial of Black women’s humanity.”
Wendy’s Subway | 2022
ISBN: 978-1-735924-22-9
This book of poems and lists, diaristic writing, and plays is “a meditation on the intersection of desire, mourning, and listening to one’s skin while coming to understand the practice of love.”
Vine Leaves Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-3-988320-53-7
Patin’s memoir “chronicles the dysfunction and lore of a Black Russian Jewish interracial family on the far south side of Chicago, and the resulting trajectory of its prodigal child.”
Come By Here: A Memoir in Essays from Georgia’s Geechee Coast by Neesha Powell-Ingabire
Hub City Press | 2024
ISBN: 979-8-885740-38-8
In her debut memoir, Powell-Ingabire “chips away at coastal Georgia’s facade of beaches and golden marshes to recover undertold Black history alongside personal and family stories.”
Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker
Sinister Wisdom | 2018
ISBN: 978-1-938334-29-0
In these collected letters, Audre Lorde and Pat Parker “discuss their work as writers as well as intimate details of their lives, including periods when each lived with cancer.”
Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit by Aisha Sabatini Sloan
Graywolf Press | 2024
ISBN: 978-1-644452-71-4
Sabatini Sloan’s collection is “rooted in the supposition that there is an intrinsic relationship between the way we conceptualize darkness and our collective opportunity for awakening.”
Girlz ‘n the Hood by Mary Hill-Wagner
Regal House Publishing | 2021
ISBN: 978-1-646030-78-1
This memoir is “the unsentimental, moving, and surprisingly humorous account of a girl and her ten siblings who grew up in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Los Angeles.”
Split/Lip Press | 2021
ISBN: 978-1-952897-11-5
In prose and photographs, Walds “engages memories of travel in their physical, affective, and relational dimensions and reflects on Aaliyah, drones, Levinas, and Bushwick along the way.”
Primary Lessons by Sarah Bracey White
CavanKerry Press | 2013
ISBN: 978-1-933880-38-9
Bracey White’s memoir “testifies to the author’s fiery spirit and sense of self that sustained her through family, social, and cultural upheavals.”
Literary Magazines
“A Little Glimmer: On Life, Grief, and Art”
The Hopkins Review | 2024
In this interview, Gioncarlo Valentine and Casey Gerald discuss the nature of progress, how grief can affect the creation of art, the end of empire, and more.
“DISCOVERY [EXCERPT]” by Dee Allen
Dipity Literary Magazine | 2025
“DISCOVERY [EXCERPT]” appears in Episode 138 of Dipity Literary Magazine’s Hummingbird Blink: Nectar Poetry podcast.
Epistemic Literary | 2024
This poem begins, “There have been times— / Musical, foot-stomping, joyous times— / At strobe-lit spaces…”
Southeast Review | 2024
This story begins, “Her return is long overdue. She must apologize for that and also for being too optimistic the last time she was here.”
An Interview with David Sterling Brown
Full Stop | 2024
In this interview, Sterling Brown and Claudia Rankine discuss his book Shakespeare’s White Others, the virtual-reality art gallery complementing the book, the act of othering, the construction of whiteness, colorblind casting, and more.
Wellspringwords | 2024
The poem “Vigor” begins, “I am 28 the age of ripe eggs in my ovaries / The age of saying I am proud of you sweet one over and over again until I am 10 again and I / believe it….”
Five Poems by Destiny O. Birdsong
Radar Poetry | 2024
The poem “Where The Line Begins” begins, “Later that night, when the low-riding hearse / and your murdered great-grandfather are gone; / and his wife dusts her face until it is velvet…”
Shō Poetry Journal | 2025
Shō Poetry Journal’s Black History Month playlist features poems by Jae Nichelle, Saida Agostini, Ellen June Wright, Corey Baron, Mckendy Fils-Aimé, Erica Dawson, and Elontra Hall, which all appeared in Issue 5 and Issue 6.
Black Lesbians—We Are the Revolution!
Sinister Wisdom | 2018
Sinister Wisdom 107 “gathers together new writing by an array of emerging and established black lesbian and queer women writers.”
“& on my way out of the capitol, I see 2 trans boys kissing” by KB Brookins
Southeast Review | 2024
This poem begins, “They lean their limbs on the big white building. / In the midst of heavy hands with amber gavels / ripping our lives away, while boys in cowboy hats / & ripped jeans…”
“Sound of Silence” by Kenny Carroll
The Georgia Review | 2024
This poem begins, “listening to the city at night i trace the glow of its breath and / without light we dance shadow and pour through one another.”
“Apnea, Amnesia” by Diana Cejas
Tahoma Literary Review | 2024
This flash essay begins, “All it takes is an inch of water. That’s what they all tell you, isn’t it? Don’t leave your babies alone in a bathtub.”
“One Day” by Kwame Sound Daniels
Bellevue Literary Review | 2023
This poem begins, “I love you like food. I keep myself from you, / take the heat, leave you bare. / I deny you your baking. I put you in a pan instead.”
“Come Full Circle” by Arnold Edwards
Decolonial Passage | 2024
This story begins, “Jackson Snell lived for his morning coffee, his routine, his ritual.”
Narrative | 2025
This online anthology contains stories, poems, and essays by David Bradley, Jericho Brown, Lucille Clifton, Kwame Dawes, and more.
“When I Was a Boxer” by Kailah Figueroa
The Cincinnati Review | 2024
This poem begins, “I was a featherweight without temperance. / According to geometry, it’s quadrilateral. According to my fist, it’s greedy—always aiming…”
“The Coptic Cross” by Eva Freeman
The Keepthings | 2024
This essay begins, “At the age of 10, when I learned to water ski on the Aegean Sea, I proudly wrote to tell my grandfather.”
Two Poems by Dontay M. Givens II
ANMLY | 2024
The poem “Fire In My Bones Bloos” begins, “Dere ain’t much lef’ on dis side of heaven— / mah woman den become a star, a ball of gas, / dey say, or a slab of hot-water cornbread / tossed up 2 tha sky.”
“Dear Tetsuko of Cold Mountain,” by Richard Hamilton
Tahoma Literary Review | 2024
This poem begins, “What more could be said of you? / Farmhouse in the hush hour / Porcelain blue tiles, copper tea pot / Like the arms of what stood.”
“Sunday Mornings” by Jasmine Harris
Decolonial Passage | 2024
This flash essay begins, “My momma, who woke up before the roosters crowed and before the early birds tickled worms from the earth, was always the last person ready.”
“Awakening in the Night” by Jason Innocent
Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine | 2024
“Awakening in the Night,” which Innocent read for the magazine’s Fall 2024 contributor reading event, was first published in Issue 32.
“Weeping for What Was Stolen” by Talicha J.
Fahmidan Journal | 2024
This poem begins, “we’ve been taught to ignore foreign blood, death, displaced / [flesh] / laid out nameless as numbers & covered in shrouds / [pressed]…”
“Bertha” by Anthony Xavier Jackson
Dipity Literary Magazine | 2024
“Bertha” appears in Episode 133 of Dipity Literary Magazine’s Hummingbird Blink: Nectar Poetry podcast.
“What They Will Say” by Fabienne Josaphat
Bellevue Literary Review | 2024
This story begins, “Marielle’s oncologist was satisfied with her markers. But as Dr. Unger turned the computer screen away and looked directly at her, there was a different concern in his eyes.”
“African American Abecedarian” by Thomas Kneeland
Southern Humanities Review | 2024
This poem begins, “A is for announcements after the A-Selection at Azion Missionary Baptist Church. B is for beer-soaked rib tips at the family reunion. C is for caramel cake…”
“Tall Lyric for Palestine (Or, The Harder Thinking)” by Rickey Laurentiis
The Common | 2023
This poem begins, “Because I should’ve wrote this years / ago, I’m crying. So what my slow / failure pass the years / Make me be crying. So what in…”
“In Montgomery County” by Thea Matthews
The Common | 2024
This poem begins, “My partner wears the panopticon, / and I carry the rope. Hungry / for the rush, the chase, we locate / the missing black calf…”
“Name” by Jennifer Maritza McCauley
West Trestle Review | 2024
This poem begins, “I didn’t come out of the womb knowing my name / But I have it stitched like peeling scar on my body…”
“Deleted Scene with Director’s Commentary” by Cheswayo Mphanza
New England Review | 2024
This poem begins, “INT: Midnight Express Snack Bar. Cop 223 (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Cop 663 (Tony Leung) sit beside each other at the countertop drinking black coffee and sharing a cigarette.”
Another Chicago Magazine | 2021
The poem “Antoine’s Graft” begins, “When I see the pecan trees aligning the circular drive, my immediate worry is the correct / pronunciation of the Algonquian word…”
Review of Ariana Benson’s Black Pastoral by Ashia S. Ajani
Full Stop | 2024
This review begins, “‘If there are any clouds overhead / that day, I don’t notice.’ Writes poet and nature lover Ariana Benson, ‘But I do note the scored plot / of my palm; its dark brown verso, in the sun turning darker, / as it begs questions of this land, its history, my play / upon it.’”
“He Calls Me Zaza: A Nonbinary Road Map to Liberation” by Keisa Reynolds
Another Chicago Magazine | 2024
This essay begins, “My toddler Bailey will tell you that he does not have a mom, he has a Zaza. I carried him for nine months and had a C-section after fifty-six hours of labor (yes, I know).”
The Hopkins Review | 2024
The poem “Benediction, Israel Baptist Church” begins, “I only needed to go / to the altar once, but no one / stopped me, tiny bride / lured by the organ’s sweet / brown tongue.”
The Core Review | 2024
This poem begins, “i am telling you, you have not witnessed beauty like the trees / on 441 with nearly 18,000 acres ravaged by the wildfire / as a backdrop.”
“Birthing the Balance” by Sabriaya Shipley
Wellspringwords | 2024
This poem begins, “ I’ve grown tired of begging folks to stay with me in the yellow— / to wrap themselves in the warmth of my embrace even as…”
ANMLY | 2023
This piece begins, “Enrique woke to a scraping, pounding, and a sigh. Even with his eyes closed, he recognized the sound of the mortar and pestle.”
“Touching The Elephant: Notes from a Haitian in the Diaspora” by Idrissa Simmonds-Nastili
Adi Magazine | 2024
This essay begins, “Defending Haiti feels like defending a beloved family member that I have never met directly, but who I have known of my whole life—through family stories and the gifts shared in the mail.”
ANMLY | 2023
The poem “Self Portrait As Alive and Not Dead” begins, “I think that feeling happy is akin to feeling briskly alive, / aware and cognizant of your hands, the gravity of / your body…”
The Alchemy of Art: An Interview with Charles Johnson
New England Review | 2017
In this interview, Johnson and Nathaniel G. Nesmith discuss Johnson’s high school and college experiences in the 1960s, transitioning from visual art to writing, keeping creative freedom, and more.
The Recurring Dream of the Water Mothers
Adi Magazine | 2023
Issue 16 of Adi Magazine features a ten-part series of “mythic portraiture and epic poetry” by Airea D. Matthews and Laylah Amatullah Barrayn.
The Cincinnati Review | 2024
This poem begins, “A carpet of moss exhales inside an abandoned temple. A lone figure scrapes grime from a row of faded headstones.”
The Hudson Review | 2023
The poem “Understory” begins, “He wakes me before 6 / —a few taps on the shoulder / followed by a man cannot afford to be / a deep sleeper.”
“Photographic Memory” by Adrienne Unger
Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine | 2024
“Photographic Memory,” which Unger read for the magazine’s Fall 2024 contributor reading event, was first published in Issue 32.
“Aubade for Angela” by Ellen June Wright
West Trestle Review | 2024
This poem begins, “I can only say the new day / is as much yours as anyone’s. / It’s real estate designed for you just like / the moon is an unpriced parcel of land.”
