5 Poetry Collections As History Lessons

Claudia Rankine sacrifices neither words nor images in her book, choosing instead for each to complement the other and linger in the reader’s mind. In Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, Rankine spends time examining the aftermath of 9/11 through the lens of prescription drugs and television. I was only 5 years old at the fall of the Twin Towers. I did not watch as everyday things—such as the handling of the mail—took on the shape of fear. Rankine’s observations zoom in on those moments when the mundane became suddenly dangerous. The poet’s writing is both casual and profound, a conversation I cannot walk away from.

Serial killers are not exactly my jam (I’m already a nervous wreck when running by myself in a tame town in broad daylight). When I delved into Olivia Gatwood’s poetry collection, I learned for the first time about JonBenét Ramsey, as well as stories and horrifying facts about sexual assault and violence against women. Gatwood is clever, sincere, and intimidatingly smart. Some of my favorites are the poems that turn stereotypical icons of femininity—such as the color pink—into things to be celebrated, even when told by the world that doing so warrants mocking.

Before reading The January Children, I had never heard of Abdelhalim Hafez. I did not know much about Sudan and the British Occupation. While I still am not an apt scholar on any of the subjects, Safia Elhillo’s poems lit a match of curiosity. The poet writes about themes that are universal: sexism, family, and immigration. The collection also includes themes that are deeply personal, such as how elusive the idea of home can be when one belongs to multiple places. Elhillo’s writing is musical, both in sound and in subject, and a song not to be missed.

The Vietnam War spanned 19 years and took millions of lives, leaving division and pain in its wake. The war ended long before I was born, but poet Ocean Vuong writes as someone whose existence is directly linked to it: his grandmother was Vietnamese and his grandfather an American soldier. In Night Sky with Exit Wounds, the author brings the reader back and forth between Vietnam and America, both history and himself. In “Aubade with Burning City,” Vuong writes about an intimate moment between lovers while the city of Saigon is violently destroyed around them in 1975. Vuong’s writing is soft and brilliant as he depicts hard moments in dazzling verse.

Halfway through this book of poetry, Clint Smith writes a poem as if in conversation with Charles Deslondes. Others poems are addressed to Malcolm X and James Baldwin. While the latter two figures are familiar to me, the name Charles Deslondes did not ring a single bell when I read it. Smith leaves no room for ignorance in his readers; to truly engage and learn from his stanzas, I needed to do the work in bringing myself up to speed. Filled with life and movement, Counting Descent reminisces on the glory and pain of growing into adulthood while Black in America, whether today or in 1811.