13/03/2022 15:19 17 Poems To Read When The World Is Too Much

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CULTURE & CRITICISM

17 Poems To Read When The World Is Too Much

“Where does it hurt? Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere.”

by Hannah Giorgis, Tomi Obaro

Posted on July 7, 2016, 3:01 pm
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1.
"A Litany for Survival" by Audre Lorde

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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hannahgiorgis/lineage 2/12
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So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive
Amazon

2.
"The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till" by Gwendolyn Brooks

after the murder,

after the burial

Emmett’s mother is a pretty-faced thing;

the tint of pulled taffy.

3.
"Cordon Negro" by Essex Hemphill

I’m dying twice as fast

as any other American

between eighteen and thirty-five

This disturbs me,

but I try not to show it in public.

4.
"Where Do You Enter" by Nikki Giovanni

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hannahgiorgis/lineage 3/12
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We begin a poem
with longing
and end with
responsibility
And laugh
all through the storms
that are bound
to come
Pictorial Parade / Getty Images

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5.
"Lineage" by Margaret Walker

My grandmothers are full of memories

Smelling of soap and onions and wet clay

With veins rolling roughly over quick hands

They have many clean words to say.

My grandmothers were strong.

Why am I not as they?

6.
"The Night Rains Hot Tar" by Lance Jeffers

The night rains hot tar into my throat,

the taste is good to my heart’s tongue,

into my heart the night pours down its moon

like a yellow molten residue of dung:

the night pours down the sea into my throat

my heart drains off its blood in love and pain:

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the night pours a Negro song into my throat,

bloodred is the color of this rain:

7.
"Bullet Points" by Jericho Brown

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hannahgiorgis/lineage 5/12
13/03/2022 15:19 17 Poems To Read When The World Is Too Much

I will not shoot myself

In the head, and I will not shoot myself
In the back, and I will not hang myself
With a trashbag, and if I do,
I promise you, I will not do it
In a police car while handcuffed
Amazon / Via amazon.com

8.
" A Small Needful Fact" by Ross Gay

Is that Eric Garner worked

for some time for the Parks and Rec.

Horticultural Department, which means,

perhaps, that with his very large hands,

perhaps, in all likelihood,

he put gently into the earth

some plants which, most likely,

some of them, in all likelihood,

continue to grow,

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9.
"Black Lady Lazarus" by Diamond Sharp

Dying is an art and we Black girls do it so well.

Sandra &

Aiyana &

Rekia &

10.
"If It Is The Summer Of 2009" by Hanif Abdurraqib

...we revel in long enough to forget

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hannahgiorgis/lineage 6/12
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that we are black in our 20’s which is to say that we are too old

for this shit

and by this shit I of course mean living

I of course mean that we have carried the lifeless bodies of enough younger brothers to never forget that
we should be dead by now

we should have the decency to unburden America

by our dying on the side of a cracked road

11.
"praise song" by Nate Marshall

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hannahgiorgis/lineage 7/12
13/03/2022 15:19 17 Poems To Read When The World Is Too Much

praise the Hennessy, the brown

shine, the dull burn. praise
the dare, the take it, the no face
you’re supposed to make.
praise the house, its many rooms,
hardwood and butter leather couches;
its richness. praise the rich, their friendship.
praise the friends: the child of the well off,
the child of the well off, the child of  well,
the child of welfare, the child of welfare.
Amazon / Via amazon.com

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12.
"What They Did Yesterday Afternoon" by Warsan Shire

later that night

i held an atlas in my lap

ran my fingers across the whole world

and whispered

where does it hurt?

it answered

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13/03/2022 15:19 17 Poems To Read When The World Is Too Much

everywhere

everywhere

everywhere.

13.
"Self-Portrait In Case of Disappearance" by Safia Elhillo

girls with fathers gone or gone missing

sistered to dark boys marked to die & our own

bodies scarved & arranged in rows on prayer mats

we go missing too & who mourns us who

falls into the gap we leave in the world

14.
"Elegy" by Aracelis Girmay

What to do with this knowledge

that our living is not guaranteed?

Perhaps one day you touch the young branch

of something beautiful. & it grows & grows

despite your birthdays & the death certificate,

& it one day shades the heads of something beautiful

or makes itself useful to the nest. Walk out

of your house, then, believing in this.

Nothing else matters.

15.
"Gravity" by Angel Nafis

After Carrie Mae Weems’s 'The Kitchen Table Series'

I. THE STRAW

Can you throw this away Maybe you should hire more Black staff

Where are you really from You’re not busy are you You look ethnic today

Where’s the African American section Can you turn the music down

Fasterfasterfaster Let me see those eyes Beautiful If you were mine

I’d never let you leave the house It’s like you went straight to Africa

to get this one Is that your hair I mean your real hair Blackass

Your gums are black You Black You stink You need a perm

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I don’t mean to be

racist

16.
"Let Me Handle My Business, Damn" by Morgan Parker

Took me awhile to learn the good words

make the rain on my window grown

and sexy now I’m in the tub holding down

that on-sale Bordeaux pretending

to be well adjusted I am on that real

jazz shit sometimes I run the streets

sometimes they run me I’m the body

of the queen of my hood filled up

with bad wine bad drugs mu shu pork

sick beats what more can I say to you

17.
"Summer, Somewhere" by Danez Smith

no need for geography

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hannahgiorgis/lineage 10/12
13/03/2022 15:19 17 Poems To Read When The World Is Too Much
now that we’re safe everywhere.
point to whatever you please
& call it church, home, or sweet love.
paradise is a world where everything
is a sanctuary & nothing is a gun.
Courtesy of danezsmithpoet.com / Via danezsmithpoet.com

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Contact Hannah Giorgis at hannah.giorgis@buzzfeed.com.

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Tomi Obaro is a senior culture editor for BuzzFeed and is based in New York.

Contact Tomi Obaro at tomi.obaro@buzzfeed.com.

15 comments
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mathscience298
5 years ago
I'm admittedly not African American, so take my opinion as you will, but a really heart-wrenchingly strong poem is I
Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou... I adore her.
7

avalont
5 years ago

Langston Hughes "Let America be America Again"

6

paigeb496ed5a97
5 years ago

danez smith, nate marshall, hanif willis-abdurraqib, are ground breaking, as are i assume the rest of the poets i just
haven't gotten the chance to check them out yet
5

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