The Root Reading List: Poetry

All hail National Poetry Month, in which we are allowed — encouraged, even — to revel in words laid one by one without the usual constraints of punctuation or the so-called rational sequencing of prose.

In honor of this month of literary freedom, my picks for April are from three of our freshest, most accomplished young poets — and one, now gone, I cannot imagine life without.

In the coming months, look for new books of poetry by bell hooks and Percival Everett; don't forget to read Chris Abani and Natasha Trethewey; and take some time to sink into the deep waters of Lucille Clifton, Audre Lorde and Yusef Komunyakaa.

Make April count. Add your favorite poets to the list in the comments, or fill the space with a poem of your own.

Evoke. Excite. Reveal. Stir. Boil. Ponder. Dare. Deliberate. Rage. Love. Desire. Howl. Be bold. Take the road not traveled.

These writers did.

Directed by Desire, by June Jordan (Copper Canyon Press)

The legendary June Jordan was one of the first poets I knew, read and understood deep in my bones. Her book for young adults, His Own Where, holds a permanent place on my bookshelf, and Things That I Do in the Dark, her first collection of poems from 1977, saw me running to pick up my own pen in response to the power of her words:

"These Poems"

These poems they are things that I do in the dark reaching for you whoever you are and are you ready?

These words they are stones in the water running away

These skeletal lines they are desperate arms for my longing and love.

I am a stranger learning to worship the strangers around me

whoever you are whoever I may become.

The work of Terrance Hayes is new to my bookshelf but no less loved for its potency than volumes that have stood the test of time. His latest, the National Book Award-winning Lighthead, feels especially prescient. From the jacket: "Hayes' fourth collection portrays the lightheadedness of a mind trying to pull against gravity and time. It sets what it means to be 'light longing for lightness' against what it means to 'burn with all of the humanity fire strips away.' " Yes. Yes. Yes.

"Mystic Bounce"

Even if you love the racket of ascension, you must know how the power leaves you. And at this pitch, who has time for meditation? The sea walled in by buildings. I do miss the quiet. Don't you? When I said, "Fuck the deer antlered and hithered in fur," it was because I had seen the faces of presidents balled into a fist. If I were in charge, I would know how to fix the world: free health care or free physicals, at least, and an abiding love for the abstract. When I said, "All of history is saved for us," it was because I scorned the emancipated sky. Does the anthem choke you up? When I asked God if anyone born to slaves would die a slave, He said, "Sure as a rock descending a hillside." That's why I'm not a Christian.

The Other Side of Paradise: A Memoir, by Staceyann Chin (Scribner)

Staceyann Chin. What to say about this beautiful, bold, fearless woman? I came to her poems just last year, after reading this critically acclaimed memoir. I didn't know anything about Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam or her legions of readers all over the world. I was a fan, but then, the poems, they showed me something else. Something more. Something undeniable.

In the fall of 1990 I let go of my virginity The Desert Storm blasting loud from his 13 inch TV of course it was summer there Kingston sweltering sweat collecting in my navel trembling in the face of the unknown

I wondered then if the explosions were for me or the little people on the blue screen far away from my pleasure they were pictured small boys with metal rods pointing to where they suspect America might be

Today I make love to a young girl the sound of this New War everywhere wonder what we will lose this time

This time I was visiting home for when it began bright

silver bombs bursting clouds buildings the victims everything looks small on cable TV

I don't know maybe the boys in Kuwait lived maybe only their dreams died in the gulf that year But I will never be that girl again slow turning beneath his hands

I am a woman now

"Allegiance" appears by permission of the author. 

Skin, Inc.: Identity Repair Poems, by Thomas Sayers Ellis (Graywolf Press) 

Ellis co-founded the Dark Room Collective and received a Whiting Award, among several others. From the jacket of his explosive new collection, Skin, Inc., is Ellis' ambitious argument for an America whose identity is in need of repair. Part handbook noir, part identity repair kit, part plea for poetic wholeness, this collection worries and self-defends, eulogizes and casts a vote, raises a fist and, often, an intimidating song. One example:

Or Oreo, or worse. Or ordinary. Or your choice of category

or Color

or any color other than Colored or Colored Only. Or "Of Color"

or Other

or theory or discourse or oral territory. Oregon or Georgia or Florida Zora

or Opportunity

or born poor or Corporate. Or Moor. Or a Noir Orpheus or Senghor

or Diaspora

or a horrendous and tore-up journey. Or performance. Or allegory's armor of ignorant comfort

or Worship

or reform or a sore chorus. Or Electoral Corruption or important ports of Yoruba or worry

or Neighbor

or fear of … of terror or border. Or all organized minorities.

"Or," appears by permission of the author.

Rebecca Walker is a frequent contributor to The Root.