Say Her Name by Zetta Elliott

Summary from Goodreads:

Say her name and solemnly vow

Never to forget, or allow

Our sisters’ lives to be erased;

Their presence cannot be replaced.

This senseless slaughter must stop now.

Award-winning author Zetta Elliott engages poets from the past two centuries to create a chorus of voices celebrating the creativity, resilience, and courage of Black women and girls. Inspired by the #SayHerName campaign launched by the African American Policy Forum, these poems pay tribute to victims of police brutality as well as the activists championing the Black Lives Matter cause. This compelling collection reveals the beauty, danger, and magic found at the intersection of race and gender.

Review:

I don’t believe I’ve ever reviewed a book of poetry on this blog before. I do sometimes read books that I don’t review. They are often adult fiction or nonfiction, and sometimes they are poetry books. I guess there’s not a lot of YA poetry out there. When I received this book, I was so excited to get a chance to talk poetry here. Not only is this a YA poetry book, but it’s a feminist, Black Lives Matter YA poetry book.

I was going to just read a couple of poems when I first got it, and get back to the rest of the book later (after I finished a couple novels I was reading). But instead, I actually, read the whole book in one sitting. It’s beautiful. And like books of short stories, some poems spoke to me more than others. The poem, “Lullaby” made me cry. The poems “Black Lives Matter” and “Men Made of Glass,” gave me goose bumps. Other poems I’ve read over and over and they just resonate so strongly with me.

Each page is accompanied by these colorful, graphic prints. The illustrations are done by Loveis Wise. And they make the book a celebration. Without them, the whole thing would have a very different vibe. The pictures allow the words to be honored and celebrated, and not just mourned and cried over. And the words deserve celebration. They are seriously goose bump inducing.

The author does a write-up at the end to explain the inspiration for her work. A lot was inspired by famous black women poets, some I recognize, some I don’t.  Now, I want to go look up the ones I don’t know. A lot of her words came from her reactions to recent events of racism and violence. And seeing what inspired the poet to write gave even more power to her words. All in all, I loved this book. I plan on keeping it nearby so I can go back and re-read these beautiful poems whenever I need to. I give it a 10/10.