My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter

I am 27 and have never killed a man

but I know the face of death as if heirloom

my country memorizes murder as lullaby

from "For Fahd"

Textured with the sights and sounds of growing up in East New York in the nineties, to school on the South Side of Chicago, all the way to the olive groves of Palestine, My Mother Is a Freedom Fighter is Aja Monet's ode to mothers, daughters, and sisters—the tiny gods who fight to change the world. These stunning poems tackle racism, sexism, genocide, displacement, heartbreak, and grief, but also love, motherhood, spirituality, and Black joy.