The 28th of September is National Poetry day, so in celebration of that here are 8 absolutely amazing women who are taking, or have taken, the poetry world by storm.
1. Tracy K. Smith, ‘Life on Mars’
credit: Mito Habe-Evans
Tracy K. Smith has published three collections of poetry, but her most critically acclaimed is arguably ‘Life on Mars’ which she released in 2011 and went on to win the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for. She is an extremely well known poet, in fact Joel Brouwer wrote about Smith in 2011″Smith shows herself to be a poet of extraordinary range and ambition…As all the best poetry does, Life on Mars first sends us out into the magnificent chill of the imagination and then returns us to ourselves, both changed and consoled.”
2. Amanda Lovelace, ‘The Princess Saves Herself In This One’
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZRXl9xAxkl/?hl=en&taken-by=ladybookmad
On the 14th of February 2016 Amanda Lovelace published her debut collection of poems titled ‘the princess saves herself in this one’. It is a collection split into four parts: the princess, the damsel, the queen and you. The opening three sections are a sort of biography of the authors life where the last section is essentially a note to the reader. This collection of poems is also winner of the goodreads choice 2016. “This moving book explores love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment and inspiration”
3. Orion Carloto, ‘Flux’
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZJ7WrHH018/?hl=en&taken-by=orionvanessa
Orion Carloto is a youtuber and poet whos debut poetry collection ‘Flux’ is released on october 24th. She is also an activist for LGBT+ rights, being bisexual herself and she released a short film ‘Transitions’ about a couple as one partner transitions this past August.
4. Rupi Kaur, ‘Milk and Honey’
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZSH4gnggNn/?hl=en&taken-by=rupikaur_
Rupi Kaur released her first collection of poems which touches on themes of violence, abuse, love, loss and femininity titled ‘milk and honey’. Milk and honey has since sold over a million copies worldwide and spent over a year and reaching #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
5. Audre Lorde
credit: Robert Alexander/Getty Images
Audre Lorde is a self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior and poet” whos poetry was published very regularly during the 1960s in both the USA and in foreign anthologies. Also throughout the 1960s Lorde was very politically active in civil rights, anti-war and feminist movements. In regards to Lorde being politically active Lorde famously said “Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference — those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older — know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of support.”
6. Sylvia Plath
credit: ALAMY
Sylvia Plath is commonly known as one of the most admired poets of the 20th century. Before tragically taking her own life at age 30 Plath already had a considerable following. In the ‘New York Times Book Review’, Joyce Carol Oates described Plath as “one of the most celebrated and controversial postwar poets writing in English”
7. Carol Ann Duffy
New Selected Poems by Carol Ann Duffy published by Picador USA
Duffy was the first female Scottish Poet Laureate. Her poetry has a combination of softness and toughness, humour, slight controversial themes but non the less has won over thousands of readers and listeners.
8. Aja Monet
screenshot via youtube
Aja Monet is the youngest poet to have ever become the Nuyorican Poets Café Grand Slam Champion in 2007 when she was only 19 years old, since then she is still the only woman to win the title. Monet is also a very big activist she is a large participant in the Say Her Name campaign.
