Reviews

My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter by Aja Monet

blove0312's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

 I just figured out there’s no way to export highlights from Hoopla so I’ll have to do that tomorrow at work using a browser. I took the time to type some of them out over the last month that I’d been reading this. It shouldn’t have taken so long but I always read my physical or kindle book up till the muscle relaxers started kicking in, and I’ve found that in order for me to read poetry, and at least try to understand it, I need to focus, read it through silently once, and another time aloud if necessary - which in most cases it is.

The witnessing section was the most powerful to me. I think I ought to get a copy of the book, maybe it’ll hit even harder to hold a real copy in my hands. The last part of “Undressing a Wound” focused a lot on love, some sex, and it wasn’t really for me but the last couple were top tier material. I do feel I’ve gotten something, or several things, from Aja’s words. After I get my highlights, I’ll go back and read all the poems I saved stuff from again; maybe several times.

It’s a good feeling to have made it through a collection of poetry and knowing I’ve understood at least some of it. That may seem strange to many, why bother reading a format or type of writing if you aren’t a fan, but I WANT to be moved by it, I WANT to understand it, I WANT to enjoy it.

——————

I’m trying to only read a few a night but now that I’m in the Witnessing section it’s like a freight train, picking up more and more speed. The anger in these poems speak to me, even if my anger is from different places.

——————

may we be our vibrantly crazy,
hysterical, and moon-sick selves.

——————

(the labor movement)

i never met a woman who wasn’t
fighting for freedom
an entire life
to trust
what truth
reveals

——————

(inner [city] chants)

we are the stories
we tell
ourselves
--

there’s a way around the system,
just ask the right questions
never take no for an answer

--

we live to die in rooms with people afraid to visit them

——————

(witnessing)

how we marchin against warfare
with chopped feet
deaf ears and no voice
to speak
they take our freedoms
then our minds
and our rights
to bleed

-- -- --

mothers raise their children to become flowers
but then become their weeds

-- -- --

we pass our failures
onto our youth and expect them
to follow the lead

-- -- --

cooing and whisper
we speak from our graves
cuz our freedom of speech
is buried and encaged
in the prisons they breed
the world

-- -- --

i will never fully understand. what’s a poem
to a prison anyhow? i cannot write the laws away
where’s the get out of jail free card
when the punishment don’t fit the crime and our families
do time for lazy politicians and crooked police?

-- -- --

that day no matter what
a sister did to show her love
she couldn’t make a boy no man
he wasn’t bent on becoming

-- -- --

all the bright and magic that dims
the light lowers
the bright and magic dims
being policed for being
too poor
too much a shade
a color

-- -- --

death is never justice
is only justice
at the hands of
the powerful and mighty

-- -- --

i’m just doing my job
is not an answer or solution or remedy
is not what you say
is not how you respond
is not professional or kind or noble
is not a prayer or lending a hand
is not a sermon
is not a law
is not an offering
is not altruistic or people-spirited
is not protecting
is not comforting
is not listening or seeing or doing
is not enuff
just doing my job
is not a being

——

there are no gods
in America
unless of course
your god
is green and greedy
complicit and complacent
compliant and easily compromised
…
so you mean to
tell me
you worship
your heart
or your Jesus
or your Allah
or your Jehovah
are you sure
there isn't something else
guiding you each day out the door

——————

([un]dressing a wound)

radically loving each other
is the only everything
worth anything

-- -- --

we protest to empower personhood
more than mourning, we roar
be not discouraged, be not dismayed
be defiant and deliberate
always, be.

-- -- --

…She fears I might be
willing to die rather
than settle for less
than the best of loving.
-Cherríe Moraga 

bustyphillips's review against another edition

5.0

Probably the best book of poetry I have ever read.

churameru's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

rachelhrieman's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

I don't usually rate poetry because the experience is so subjective. There were multiple standouts and moments that made my breath catch. A beautiful set of art that I'm grateful Aja Monet shared with the world.

erikswallow's review against another edition

challenging reflective medium-paced

4.0

skmiles's review against another edition

5.0

I've read this... Seven times over? And I get something new every time. You must spend time with this book.

bookwrmsign25's review

challenging reflective slow-paced

3.25

marcymurli's review against another edition

4.0

A powerful book of poems, political and personal, and everything in between. Monet has a unique way with words and I especially enjoyed the verbs she created with nouns. Her poems about Palestine are particularly moving.

hbermudes's review against another edition

4.0

mystical, emotional, difficult, and such precise precise language— so many underlined sentences

bookishkitkat's review

3.5

i so desperately wish i understood poetry