M. Suzanne Terry

I’m having fun/trouble narrowing down poets this month. Today, I bring you tiny snippets of five of my favorites that I hope you will read.

1. Audre Lorde – start with The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde
   From “Sisters in Arms” –
   “and wherever I touch you
   I lick cold from my fingers
   taste rage
   like salt from the lips of a woman
   who has killed too often to forget
   and carries each death in her eyes”
2. Martin Estrada – Imagine the Angels of Bread
   From the poem of the same title –
   “this is the year that the food stamps
   of adolescent mothers
   are auctioned like gold doubloons,
   and no coin is given to buy machetes
   for the next bouquet of severed heads
   in coffee plantation country.”
   
3. Yehuda Amichai – The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai
   From “In the Middle of this Century” –
   “The earth drinks men and their loves
   Like wine,
   To forget.
   It can’t.
   And like the contours of the Judean hills,
   We shall never find peace.”
4. Aja Monet – My Mother was a Freedom Fighter
   From the poem of the same title (read at this year’s Women’s March) – 
   “In a midnight voice, arms extended,
   she reads blues that lay the soul to dust.”
5. Adrienne Rich – Collected Early Poems
   From “Two Songs” –
   “I’d call it love if love
   didn’t take so many years
   but lust too is a jewel
   a sweet flower and what
   pure happiness to know
   all our high-toned questions
   breed in a lively animal.”

Who are some of your favorite poets?