Posted on December 30, 2022
So first, a confession: I’m a writing teacher, and a poet, with a book in the works, and I am not a big reader.
*gasp* “But james! The best writers are advent readers!
Yes, and thank you for reminding me of the ever-impending doom that is the battle between my imposter-syndrome and my barely-existent writing career. Cheers.
But I don’t regret it. I’ve never been a big reader—I lost my love for it by 5th grade. My teachers and (occasionally) my family quickly made it about competition, status, and about how much I could read instead of what I could gain from it, not to mention I have and always will be a slow reader. So I skipped and Sparknoted most readings in school, and I wrote, but mainly raps in my notebooks, thoughts in journals, and spoken word poems for whatever avenue people would listen.
I skated by on my disdain for reading until my first year of college—literally my first day—when the “required reading” was Tanehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. It’s wild to me that in 2017 it hadn’t clicked that there could be books made about me and people like me that weren’t entirely informational and centered experiences like mine while also using narrative moves I liked, embracing what interested me.
In hindsight, I could’ve figured that out, but who was going to tell me? The teachers who encouraged a Black, spoken word poet from eastern North Carolina to recite “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight” at a slam poetry competition, or the principal who laughed at my clearly insensitive song on my senior project mixtape (yes, I created a mixtape) from a colonizer’s point of view? Granted, I owe a lot to these individuals for fostering my love of writing, but there’s no denying it: no matter what the reason a writer isn’t reading–even if it has to do with identity–they’d be judged for it.
There’s a shame about how much writers read that is embedded within literary communities, and my indifference for reading amidst not knowing there were books about me made it much worse. This shame oozes ignorance for the various forms of storytelling and sharing information that exist amongst many different cultures and people—my culture and people, and damn did it show its ass throughout the next couple of years of my college experience.
When college started, I doubled down on my disdain for reading, and while I secretly mocked anything I read that only centered white experiences, or were only written by white authors (and I majored in education, so, most readings), I also lost and lacked any reading skills to critically engage with what I did want to read. Ironically, finally seeing myself reflected in a text was the final straw. I threw anything aside from ABSOLUTELY required reading to the wayside and retreated into hip-hop and spoken word—crafts and communities that accepted any lexile, encouraged any form of expression, and breathed life and love into the words I heard and wrote, building an appreciation for the art of word that literary spaces did not. There was no room for me as a black, rural raised, spoken word poet in reading spaces, and I didn’t want there to be.
I didn’t just avoid reading, I hated reading, and I don’t blame anyone else for doing the same.
It wasn’t until my sophomore year when my now mentor and good friend, angela gay-audre, invited me to join a book club in the Women’s Center centered around The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo—my favorite author to date—that I even remotely read anything in full. Don’t get me wrong, I still hated reading, but up until this point, I was keeping the great facade that I was a “reader” by rattling off the names of authors I’d memorized and reading tons of summaries. I had low expectations, but after meeting everyone for the first session, and, as the only male, admiring and listening to experiences and intelligence of the women around me (including the soon-to-be Dr. angela gay-audre), I decided I’d put my energy into going beyond reading summaries and actually dive deep into the content in order to keep up with the conversation.
The subsequent three months of sessions changed my perspective on reading forever.
Never before had a book taken me on a journey of growth, self-love, and expression like the life of 15-year-old Xiomara, The Poet X’s protagonist, and the New York that Acevedo settles her readers in. This novel-in-verse stretched my ideas of what a book could do, providing sparse, yet beautiful language to convey meaning and story in a way that I didn’t think poetry could, even in the spoken word scene! I was also studying to be a middle school educator, reading and keeping a novel with an Afro-Dominican protagonist who wades through strict religious parents, first loves, sexual awakenings, difficult teacher relationships, finding community with others who look like you do, learning ways to express oneself, and landing in a place that doesn’t resolve every issue or character’s plight, but addresses them realistically with tender care to each person’s experience? Oh yea, this one had to be on the teacher bookshelf (and fast forward 2 years flew off the shelf almost every other month).
The Poet X even pricked my inner child, serving that deep longing to see another young person grasping at ways to use one’s voice to express themselves, a journey that people around me from late high school through early college started in theory, but not like this. Xiomara’s story was not my own, but it was a connection — I saw people, experiences, landmarks, faces, religious iconography, and worlds that I knew, and, if I didn’t know them, that I actually wanted to learn about. Furthermore, the verse built in me a love for language, reminding me of its utility. Before this, I had no clue what poetry, as a narrative, could do on the page—that it could hold me, soothe me, and still make me feel the same as when I heard it out loud.
The moral of the story is not that I now read a ton— I still struggle to read everything I’m assigned or even want to read more about—but it is to say that I read differently now. I have the skills to enjoy what I want to read, and the skills to learn from what I don’t.
This experience is a widespread phenomena—especially for marginalized writers—and my story isn’t unique. I mean, even Stephen King states in his famous writing guide titled On Writing that: “Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” Pretty straightforward.
As well-documented as this experience is, and as much as we could get into the psychological need for belonging in regards to reading and writing, that’s not my focus. There’s plenty of scholarship and marginalized folx’s experiences that tap into that narrative, and I don’t have the space here to excavate it. I am simply another Black writer adding to that pantheon of writers of color, queer writers, and otherwise marginalized writers who want to share this story as a love letter to the future generation of writers (and folx who, for similar or different reasons from myself, end up disliking reading) that there is a book for everyone to love that will love them back—you, reader, included. This brings me to your favorite part: the books.
These books are by no means a “top five” or an exhaustive list of Black books, but rather a quick overview of what they’re about and how they’re helping me rebuild a love for reading. Granted, these are all poetry chapbooks—meaning they’re short (15-20ish poems) collections of poetry—and I know that not everyone is interested in poetry, but I really encourage anyone who enjoys the descriptions to give it a try. The sparse and intentional language are what drew me to poetry in the first place, making it more impactful to read and slowly increasing my love for it. Poetry is for everyone! Plus, I’d be more than happy to do a fiction/nonfiction version upon request!
To my heavy reading and/or non-black homies, we see you! We love you! We respect you! Come eat, drink, take your time with us—there’s room at the table for us all, and this booklist is still a lovely place to start
To my minimal-reading and/or Black homies, we in this together! We are seen, we are acknowledged, and as you’ll see here, we have and deserve books that reflect, hold, and love us fully. 🤎
A Blickity-Black Book List
I couldn’t create this list without including the first poetry collection from the author that formed my love for reading! Acevedo’s Beastgirl and Other Origin Myths is a chapbook explores what home is, familial and geographical history (of the Dominican Republic and New York), race relations, gendered expression and/or repression, and how “some bodies must walk through the world as beastly beings—as it’s publisher Yes Yes Books describes it—through the lens of a first-generation Dominican-American and the folkloric mythology passed down to her. She hooks the reader with immediacy through a starting collection of exciting, harrowing, and even everyday myths—both created and retold. These myths, especially those rich within Dominican culture, are peppered throughout this collection, even used as framing lenses and landscapes for relatable childhood memories that induce fear and comfort, as well as historical narrative, describing key moments in Dominican history like the devastating aftermaths of the reign of dictator Rafael Trujillo or America’s history and current being the murder of Xaraguan poet, cacica, religious expert and composer Anacoana by Spanish colonizers and even an ode to the rats of New York. We also get introduced to the gendered violence against women in the U.S. and Dominican Republic by a series of poems that hug each other in the collection, one of the most ripping being “It Almost Curdled My Womb Dry,” a promise from Acevedo that her future daughter would become a spear, shirking the politeness that men see as access to women’s bodies (and was also retitled “Spear” in her spoken word performance of it). Long story short, there’s a wealth of knowledge, pain, and comfort in this chapbook, and it’s been reminding me of the seemingly ever-expanding Earth we are occupying, the defamation of bodies that occurs on it, and the love—be it through reimagining or loving those closest to you—that is necessary to see any sort of future with all of us in it.
Aris Kian’s career wall is decorated—published nationwide, featured on various spoken word outlets, she’s a phenomenon. Her premier chapbook—blac·ademic—assembles all of this genius and more, creating a collected body of work that centers learning, as Aris stated in a conversation of ours, each poem inspired by a lesson, challenging the speaker and reader to think through something new. Many of these poems make strong pronouncements of a lesson learned, while others exist in a liminal space of processing facets of Blackness. Regardless, all of these poems strive to answer several questions—what is Blackness? What does it mean to be Black? What does it mean to be Black and girl or Black and woman? Where is home from here — is this home? Who am I and where do I see me?—and answers or processes them with tenderness and intentionality. Readers can come to Kian’s work from many perspectives, educational backgrounds, and emotional points of view, but if you are reading this, there is one thing that you must be prepared to do throughout this chapbook: learn. Kian’s work has been just that for me—a site for learning—as I’ve been writing a lot less lately and turning to Kian’s work for craft points, journeying the self, and penning experiences with love. I’ve also, before Kian, had yet to encounter a poet creating sonic companion elements to their chapbooks and/or collections, which Kian did so seamlessly with her blac·ademic visual EP. As a poet and hip-hop artist, I was mesmerized to hear Kian’s tailored voice speaking life into these poems on the page over what I can only describe as “vibacious” lofi hip-hop beats. She crafts well, she extends craft, and she made me fall in love with my own craft as well as the journey of excavating my identity.
Another spoken word poet, Ashley R. Lumpkin crafts an atmosphere in her poetry that, on the page, defies any form—sticking primarily to free form verse—and creates its own rules for engagement with longer line lengths, varied stanza breaks (of there are any at all), and self-created form that mimics both the vocal moves of spoken word as well as the defiance of the status quo of religion, hence the title. Lumpkin centers such a large topic—Christianity—and analyzes it through such a personal lens that it reads like an added prophet or book that gives light to the heart of the faith: love in its many forms. Lumpkin carries her readers through snapshots of her life and ideas that reimagine and explore individuals, groups, and ideas typically attacked or considered insidious by the Christian faith. The starting snapshot poem—titled “Creation”—opens on a new understanding of trans folx from a Christian creation perspective, questioning why we would question a person’s gender identity when God created them with this identity as opposed to the constrictions society, the church, and even loved ones place on one’s authentic expression. She continues to wade through topics like depression, domestic abuse, sex and sexual desire, space, Black family dynamics, and much more with God at the center in much fresher way. I’ve loved seeing my Black, southern Baptist lifestyle represented with the actual lived experience of what it means to love others like Jesus did, which often means confronting the false teachings of hate and considering things that Christians don’t like or want to face “sinful” in the name of scripture. It’s small, in actual size fitting into the palm of the hand and in length clocking in as the shortest of these chapbooks at 14 total poems, but it still manages to be a revolutionary, intimate, and powerful read that has been making me appreciate reading much more these days.
There’s love baked into these pages—love for Black boys, of course, explicit love through love letters, violent love through harrowing descriptions of love lost, eternal love through portraits of life partnership with a Black boy, sorrowful love in loving Black boys that have been killed, love full of wonder as the speaker in many poems love on fictional characters or re-imaginings of Black boys we’ve lost—and I’m here for all of it. To be honest, I didn’t know how much I needed this book until I heard Jabar reading at an event at Scuppernog Books—one of Greensboro’s excellent local bookstores—and had a chance to hear the heart of the poems that would hold Black boys so well. With misogyny, mysogynoir, homophobia and transphobia so blatant in much of media and within the Black community, it’s hard to find media that empower and loves both the tenderness and strength of Black boys / men while also loving the entirety of Blackness, avoiding the defamation of other Black folx—especially Black women and queer Black folk— within the race. I think “Counting Descent” by Clinton Smith is one the closest I’ve found to it given its historical and holistic perspective, and there are certainly many other Black folx—Black men included—who are working against systems of oppression that hurt Black folx, but I do appreciate a book that I can hold and let hold me without shame or having to excuse harm to other communities within our Black community.
“this is for me and my niggas/for all the times we made ourselves smaller/to fit somewhere that didn’t deserve us”
And honestly, I can’t think of a better holistic summary of what this book is and does for its readers. Drawing from the literary resistance traditions of Amiri Baraka and Lucille Clifton, Williams answers the question that many of us Black folx ask when invited to an outing or gathering—“Who all gon’ be there?”—with a resounding, unapologetic (in my words) “we gon’ be there, and we either gon’ be Black as fuck, or absent from the function.” You’ve probably guessed by now that, like Acevedo, Kian and Lumpkin, Danielle P.Williams is a slam poet by trade, and it is apparent in her written craft. You can see it in her line breaks, in the way some lines run to the margin, and even in the experimentation of scattered form across the page. The most gripping part of this chapbook, in my opinion, is its unashamed, unrepentant tone, setting it up to be a fiercely authentic meditation on Blackness as a concept and a lived experience. Word choice is sharp, sparing no vulgarity—no experience or negative emotion—while still commanding both respect and attention through powerful empathy. By the first poem—“What Walking and Poetry Have In Common”—we cannot skip “NIGGER” in all caps to describe how Amiri Baraka liked his work “loud as fuck,” framing the rest of Williams’ collection. By the second poem—“These Are the Phases”—we cannot escape the images of Black bodies being murdered or the subsequent mother crying, nor can we escape the indictment of America and its tragedies in the Tulsa massacre, showcasing the prioritization of white life. These ripping moments coupled with familial love-based poems like “Good Times” after Lucille Clifton, freedom march prose poems like “A Walk On June Nineteenth,” Black liturgies revering our dead like “A Ghazal for Black Mourning,” and so much more, Williams reveals the Blackness that is birthed from an emotional landscape of anger, sorrow, joy, and journeying. Williams’ work has been a reminder of the simple charge to sit in the feeling of being Black and meditate on what that means for me. All-in-all, Who All Gon’ Be There is a quick read, but I find myself coming back to these poems less for language-driven craft or images (though these elements are sprinkled throughout), but rather solely to let myself break and rest in my Black rage, Black pain, Black hope, Black love, Black joy, and Black existence.
<em>JAMES DANIELS (he/him) is a first-year writer, poet, educator and musician. He uses word and sound to build a body of work that affirms the heart of people in the healing process, forming experiences and creating characters that bring readers/listeners to engage with what terrifies them in the hopes of digging past the honest to establish peace and joy.</em>
