Matwaala’s latest Poets of Colour series brings together four poets and one artist whose work explores the lands, rivers, culture and histories belonging to and inherited by contemporary Native Americans.
Usha Akella and Pramila Venkateswaran present the second collection of poems by Mexican women poets – Ana Belén López, Natalie Toledo, Elsa Cross, Maria Baranda and Mariana Bernardez – held in honour of Matwaala’s 2021 Festival of Poets of Colour series.
For their Poets of Colour Festival, Matwaala 2021 brings together five prize-winning African American women poets – Dorothy Randall Gray, Cynthia Manick, Loretta Diane Walker, Marsha Nelson and Anastasia Tomkin. Here, Lucy Writers showcases their brilliant, moving work, which ranges from a celebration of Black motherhood through to the final moments of George Floyd’s life.
In our final poem from Usha Akella’s Flora and Fauna series, Pramila Venkateswaran encourages us to look upwards and contemplate the magical, ‘unseen paths’ above the terra firma.
In her two poems, ‘Three Notes to Blue Jays’ and ‘So Much’, Zilka Joseph’s words take flight when describing the dazzling brilliance of a Blue Jay and Hummingbird in the open spaces of Michigan.
Poet and Lucy Writers’ Poetry editor, Usha Akella, writes of the South Asian Diaspora Poets’ Collective festival, Matwaala, which she founded several years ago.
