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.

My name is Sophie. This book is about me. It tells the heart-stoppingly riveting story of my first love. And also of my second. And, okay, my third love, too. It's not that I'm boy crazy. It's just that even though I'm almost fifteen I've been having sort of a hard time trying to figure out the difference between love and lust. It's like my mind and my body and my heart just don't seem to be able to agree on anything.

I Carry My Mother is a book-length cycle of poems that explores a daughter's journey through her mother's illness and death. From diagnosis through yahrtzeit (one-year anniversary), the narrator grapples with what it means to lose a mother. The poems, written in a variety of forms (sonnet, pantoum, villanelle, sestina, terza rima, haiku, and others) are finely crafted, completely accessible, and full of startling, poignant, and powerful imagery. These poems will resonant with all who have lost a parent, relative, spouse, friend, or anyone whom they dearly love. In a passionate book, Lesléa Newman chronicles her mother's dying and the phases of her own grieving. She fuses an unsparing realism with lyrical intensity, in honest, direct, clear language, in mostly rhymed stanzas. The pages seem to tremble with an accurate description of changing emotional states, all born of the closeness, humor, and love in the mother-daughter relationship. -Naomi Replansky, author of The Dangerous World and Collected Poems. After the introductory poem I thought 'oh dear, I'm going to cry my way through the whole thing.' And then, the exquisite first-rate poetry-using forms like triolet and rondeau-took me to a much deeper place than tears can possibly reveal. This is a very beautiful book. -Judy Grahn, author of A Simple Revolution: The Making of an Activist Poet. Throughout her long career, Lesléa Newman has distinguished herself by diving deep into the essentials of life and delivering them with a light touch. The poems in her new collection, I Carry My Mother, are both light and dark. They are small rituals that draw us closer to the child within, revealing the complex love between a vivacious mother and an independent daughter. Each verse is a spiritual chant; each line is a lyric glistening with grief. -Jewelle Gomez, author ofThe Gilda Stories and Oral Tradition. Using forms inspired by poets ranging from Wallace Stevens to Dr. Seuss, from Sir Philip Sidney to Elizabeth Bishop, Lesléa Newman's heartfelt poems are a loving tribute to her mother. The poems move back and forth between precise images of her mother in life-"her tiny feet/Her toenails painted candy-apple red," -and images of her mother as she dies-"a tiny, mottled lump of clay." I Carry My Mother allows us to look into a deeply personal portrait of a mother and daughter who are so much alike that when the daughter looks into the mirror, "my mother stares back." In the dedication, Newman writes, "may her memory be a blessing." These poems evoke and preserve those memories, showing how love lives on after death. -Ellen Bass, author ofLike a Beggar and The Human Line

A collection of poems in which a daughter reflects on the death of her beloved mother.

My Mother's Body, Marge Piercy's tenth book of poetry, takes its title from one of her strongest and most moving poems, the climax of a powerful sequence of Poems to her mother. Rooted in an honest, harrowing, but ally ecstatic confrontation of the mother / daughter relationship in all its complexity and intimacy, it is at the same time an affirmation of continuity and identification. "The Chuppah" comprises poems actually used in her wedding ceremony with Ira Wood. This section sings with powerfully female love poetry. There is also a sustained and direct use of her Jewish identity and faith in these poems, as there is in a number of other poems throughout the volume. Readers of Piercy's previous collections will not be surprised to encounter her mixture of the personal and the political, her love of animals and the Cape landscape. There are poems about doing housework, about accidents, about dreaming, about bag ladies, about luggage, about children's fears of nuclear holocaust; about tomcats, insects in the rafters, the influence of a name, appleblossoms and blackberries, pollution, and some of the ways women objectify one another. In "Does the light fail us, or do we fail the light?" Piercy writes with lacerating honesty about our relationships with the elderly and about hers with her father. Some of the most moving poems are domestic, as in the final sequence, "Six underrated pleasures," which finds in daily women's tasks both pleasure and mystery, affirmation of serf and connection with the mother. In all, My Mother's Body is one of Piercy's most powerful and balanced collections.

Mother Truths is a beautiful, funny, and raw collection of poetry about early motherhood. The perfect gift for expectant mothers and new mums.

Mary Rita Schilke Korzan wrote a poem to her mother 24 years ago, thanking her for all she had done as a mother, friend, and role model. She gave the poem to her mother and, a few months later, offered it as a tribute when Mary and her husband were married. So many wedding guests asked for a copy that Mary included one in her thank-you notes.Then began the strange and heartwarming journey of Mary's poem to her mom. Friends passed it on to those they knew. A minister in her hometown couldn't recall who gave it to him, but he included the by-then "anonymously written" poem in his book about loving others. Another author picked it up from there for her compilation of heartfelt works, and Mary finally noticed her poem, now listed as "Author Unknown," in A Fourth Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul, which her husband and children gave her as a Mother's Day gift.With this new book, readers have the chance to experience When You Thought I Wasn't Looking in its entirety and from its creator. This is the special kind of book that reminds us that sometimes the little things we do "just because" mean more to someone than we can ever know. Those little things teach love, compassion, and understanding. In other words, they're priceless. This sweet gift book brings that lesson home to the heart.