Five Poetry Books Written by Women to Add to Your Summer Reading List
Brina Jeffries
July 6, 2020
From bingeing shows on Netflix to trying the new restaurants around your neighborhood, summer brings about an awareness of new possibilities and experiences. Whether you are sitting on the beach, at the pool, or in a park, one thing is for certain—you should never be without a good book. From fiction, to historical narratives, there are a bountiful array of new reads at your fingertips but nothing seems to hit the soul on a summer day like poetry.
Poetry allows us to engulf ourselves in a world of emotions, both good and bad and provides for some well-needed reflection. The following is a list of 5 books that should be on your current summer reading list and a must-have for your next vacation.
All the Words I Should Have Said by Rania Naim, is a beautiful book filled of poetry exploring both the exhilaration and unhappiness that comes along with relationships and love, showcasing that emotion are never something easy to navigate.
Described by the New York Times as the "meditative heir to Nietzsche's aphorisms, Rilke's Book of Hours and the verses of Sufi mysticism”, Surge by Etel Adnan is a fantastical work of art that transcends the reader into a whimsical state of being.
Bringing back this poetry and artists favorite this summer, is Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider: Essays & Speeches. A collective work instrumental in dismantling the oppressive factors that seemingly run our society such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia; Sister Outsider explores existing in a world that is against you and how to fight back.
Although from the outside it seems as if it just a book discussing botany, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, is a body of work that seeks to challenge the special relationship that people have with the natural earth.
Perhaps a reader’s favorite this summer, and undoubtedly worth this reputation is Fariha Róisín’s, How to Cure a Ghost. Disclosing the trauma of her past and the past of so many femmes around the world, Róisín’s takes a plunge into death, pain, and love.
