Social Poetry

A celebration of a child's growing self awareness, and a prime example of how books can contribute to this. Whether brave or shy, strong or weak, in the end, the young boy celebrates all different and apparently contradictory parts of himself.

The co-author of Watch Us Rise pens a novel in verse about all the good and bad that comes with middle school, growing up girl, and the strength of family that gets you through it. Beatrice Miller may have a granny’s name (her granny's, to be more specific), but she adores her Mamaw and her mom, who give her every bit of wisdom and love they have. But the summer before seventh grade, Bea wants more than she has, aches for what she can't have, and wonders what the future will bring.

Slang, writes Michael Adams, is poetry on the down low, and sometimes lowdown poetry on the down low, but rarely, if ever, merely lowdown. It is the poetry of everyday speech, the people's poetry, and it deserves attention as language playing on the cusp of art. In Slang: The People's Poetry, Adams covers this perennially interesting subject in a serious but highly engaging way, illuminating the fundamental question "What is Slang" and defending slang - and all forms of nonstandard English - as integral parts of the American language.

In Remember Me Now, Faitth grapples with the answer, charting the story of her activist grandparents and ancestors, as well as chronicling her own journey as the first-generation suburbs kid who becomes an activist and organizer herself. Part manifesto, part love letter to Black women, Remember Me Now shows us how we learn to celebrate the fullness of ourselves—a holy, defiant, and necessary move in a world determined to silence us.

To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. In recent years non-religious funerals have become more common, but without an established canon of texts to fall back on, it can be difficult to plan an appropriate service for a loved one who had no religious belief or connections. Texts recommended by secular humanists, especially modern texts, can sometimes sound trite or overly informal.

Poartry: A Collision of Poetry and Art by Douglas Kiburz, MD, is a collection of poetry, essays, eulogies, philosophy, and interpretation of historical events. From Maple Leaf Meadows ranch in the Midwest, Kiburz brings his experience as an orthopedic surgeon, father, son, husband, sculptor, rancher, and poet to bear in the sometimes comical, often dignified, and always thought-provoking collection.

After the death of her child, a grief-stricken psychotherapist, teacher, and writer volunteers as a poetry teacher at a residential treatment facility for “delinquent” girls. Here, their mutual support nourishes and enriches each other, though not without large quantities of drama and recalcitrance. Compelling, appealing, poignant, and often hilarious, I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent chronicles the passion that grew for pushing voices out into the world.