With current events reflecting those of history, many allies are diving in to learn more about racism, discrimination, and the change we can hope to create while at the same time highlighting #OwnVoices works by Black creators. We also recently celebrated Pride and the experiences of those in the LGBTQIA+ community. Until now, we were unable to explore these voices using the physical library collection, but as of today, everyone can resume placing holds on library materials. Many of the titles below are also available as ebooks if that is your preferred format.
Even though small victories have been made, we all must continue to learn-- both to better ourselves and the community of which we are a part. If, like me, you are looking for a break from nonfiction, and still want to continue the fight, you might try your hand at some of these titles from our American Poetry Core Collection. Poetry can be a language both intimately personal and emotionally universal.
By Black Authors:
- For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide, When the Rainbow is Enuf: a Choreopoem by Ntozke Shange
- The Complete Poetry by Maya Angelou
- Hard Times Require Furious Dancing by Alice Walker
- Complete Writings by Phillis Wheatley
- Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea: Poems and Not Quite Poems by Nikki Giovanni
- Does Your House Have Lions by Sonia Sanchez
- How to be Drawn by Terrance Hayes
- The Vintage Book of African American Poetry
- The Rose That Grew from Concrete by Tupac Shakur
- Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks
- The Black Unicorn: Poems by Audre Lorde
By LGBTQIA+ Authors:
- A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver
- Meditations in an Emergency by Frank O’Hara
- The Niagara River by Kay Ryan
- Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics
- Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg
- Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Rooms by Gertrude Stein
- Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
- Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
A guest blog by Monica, librarian and member of the American Poetry Core Collection Team
