Black Poets – Equal Opportunity Reader

[REVIEW] Can You Sign My Tentacle? by Brandon O’Brien

A Black woman's (my) hand holds the paperback of Can You Sign My Tentacle up in front of a fancy hotel elevator. The cover depicts an elder God, half human half writhing tentacles, eyes fathomless, purple dreadlocks poppin', holding a sharpie marker in one outstretched, ageless hand.

(Buy this book.) The author of this speculative poetry collection is from Trinidad and Tobago. I’ve never been there, but I imagine that being islands, there are beaches there, with waves that flow across the sand and lap against the rocks in the same way that these poems flow across your eyes and lap againstContinue reading “[REVIEW] Can You Sign My Tentacle? by Brandon O’Brien”

[REVIEW] A Bastard’s Degree In English, November St. Michael

(Buy it HERE.) 🍁⠀⠀3 things: ⠀⠀1) I haven’t been adulting particularly well lately. Spare a good thought in the direction of this reader when you can. ⠀⠀2) November is Native American Heritage Month and for the rest of the month I’ll be reading and reviewing indigenous writers and their work.⠀⠀3) But before that–what better thingContinue reading “[REVIEW] A Bastard’s Degree In English, November St. Michael”

[REVIEW] Felon, by Reginald Dwayne Betts

Buy it HERE. 🚔⠀I am a father driving/his Black sons to school & the death/of a Black boy rides shotgun &this/could be a funeral procession⠀~from “When I Think of Tamir Rice While Driving”⠀✊🏿⠀When it’s difficult for me to focus, I tend to read poetry. This short collection surprisingly filled an empathetic void in me IContinue reading “[REVIEW] Felon, by Reginald Dwayne Betts”