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Author
Publisher
Grand Central Publishing
Pub. Date
2015.
Language
English
Formats
Description
" In THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, Elizabeth Alexander--poet, mother, and wife--finds herself at an existential crossroads after the sudden death of her husband, who was just 49. Reflecting with gratitude on the exquisite beauty of her married life that was, grappling with the subsequent void, and feeling a re-energized devotion to her two teenage sons, Alexander channels her poetic sensibilities into a rich, lucid prose that describes a very personal and...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
The first time Lynn Melnick listened to a Dolly Parton song in full, she was 14 years old, in the triage room of a Los Angeles hospital, waiting to be admitted to a drug rehab program. Already in her young life as a Jewish teen in the 1980s, she had been the victim of rape, abuse, and trauma, and her path to healing would be long. But in Parton’s words and music, she recognized a fellow survivor. In this powerful, incisive work of social and self-exploration,...
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair's father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman's highest virtue was her obedience. In an...
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"Poet Laureate Joy Harjo offers a vivid, lyrical, and inspiring call for love and justice in this contemplation of her trailblazing life. In the second memoir from the first Native American to serve as US poet laureate, Joy Harjo invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her "poet-warrior" road. A musical, kaleidoscopic meditation, Poet Warrior reveals how Harjo came to write poetry of compassion and healing, poetry...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Shayla Lawson is major. You don't know who she is, yet, but that's okay. She is on a mission to move black girls like herself from best supporting actress to a starring roles in the major narrative. With a unique mix of personal stories, pop culture observations, and insights into politics and history, Lawson sheds light on the many ways black femininity has influenced mainstream culture. Timely, enlightening, and wickedly sharp, This Is Major shows...
Author
Publisher
William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
Pub. Date
[2017]
Language
English
Description
"Poet, firebrand, mother, radical, healer, and sage, Nikki Giovanni has always been celebrated for her inspired and courageous voice. For decades, she has spoken out on the sensitive issues -- race and gender, violence and inequality -- that touch our national consciousness. As energetic and insightful as ever, Nikki Giovanni now offers us an intimate and affecting look at her personal history and the hidden corners of her own heart. In A Good Cry,...
Author
Publisher
Scribner
Pub. Date
c2013
Language
English
Description
Draws on exclusive interviews as well as previously unavailable archives to illuminate the writer's life outside of her relationship with Ted Hughes, offering insight into her poetry and prose while revealing the origins of her unique style.
Author
Publisher
W.W. Norton & Company
Pub. Date
c2012
Language
English
Appears on these lists
2023 Reading Challenge: Memoir or autobiography by someone you admire
The Sentence "Totally Biased List of Tookie's Favorite Books" Book Discussion
The Sentence "Totally Biased List of Tookie's Favorite Books" Book Discussion
Description
A memoir from the Native American poet describes her youth with an abusive stepfather, becoming a single teen mom, and how she struggled to finally find inner peace and her creative voice.
Author
Publisher
Viking
Pub. Date
[2019]
Language
English
Description
"Poets of the twentieth century Elizabeth Bishop's friend James Merrill once observed that 'Elizabeth had more talent for life--and for poetry--than anyone else I've known.' This new biography reveals just how she learned to marry her talent for life with her talent for writing in order to create a brilliant array of poems, prose, and letters--a remarkable body of work that would make her one of America's most beloved and celebrated poets. In Love...
Author
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date
[2023]
Language
English
Description
"With the publication of her first book of poems, at the age of sixty-three, Amy Clampitt rose meteorically to fame, launching herself from obscurity to the upper ranks of American poetry all but overnight, and living a whirlwind eleven years until her death in 1994. Here we have the first full-length study of this patron saint of late bloomers-of her poetry, and of the lifetime it took her to find the true form for her words. "For the ocean, nothing...
Author
Series
Publisher
Yale University Press
Pub. Date
[2021]
Language
English
Description
What Noise Against the Cane is a lyric quest for belonging and freedom, weaving political resistance, Caribbean folklore, immigration and the realities of Black life in America. Desiree C. Bailey begins by reworking the epic in an oceanic narrative of bondage and liberation in the midst of the Haitian Revolution. The poems move into the contemporary Black diaspora, probing the mythologies of home, belief, nation and womanhood. Series judge Carl Phillips...
Author
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
"Mary-Alice Daniel's family moved from West Africa to England when she was a very young girl, leaving behind the vivid culture of her native land in the Nigerian savanna. They arrived to a blanched, cold world of prim suburbs and unfamiliar customs. So began her family's series of travels across three continents in search of places of belonging. A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing ventures through the physical and mythical landscapes of Daniel's...
20) A book of days
Author
Publisher
Random House
Pub. Date
[2022]
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"In 2018, without any plan or agenda for what might happen next, Patti Smith posted her first Instagram photo: her hand with the simple message "Hello Everybody!" Known for shooting with her beloved Land 250 Camera, Smith started posting selfies with her phone, portraits of her kids, her radiator, her boots, and her Abyssinian cat, Cairo. Followers felt an immediate affinity with these miniature windows into Smith's world, her daily coffee, the books...
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