In celebration of Black History Month, we’ll be highlighting a diverse range of books, all written by Black American authors, all of which celebrate and prioritize Black Joy. We’ll be featuring a title every day through the month of February.
Kleaver Cruz, creator of the Black Joy project, says that “Black joy is resistance. Amplifying Black joy is not about dismissing or creating an ‘alternative’ Black narrative that ignores the realities of our collective pain; rather, it is about holding the pain and injustices we experience as Black folks around the world in tension with the joy we experience in pain’s midst. It’s about using that joy as an entry into understanding the oppressive forces we navigate through as a means to imagine and create a world free of them.”
Today’s work is bell hooks’ When Angels Speak of Love, a collection of 50 love poems that explore the romantic, the intimate, the self, and love in all its forms. Known for her essays, criticism, and her NYT Bestseller All About Love, hooks shows her versatility of form with familiar subject matter, and this reflective, often narrative body of poems is both arresting and accessible.
Stay tuned for a new book tomorrow!
