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.
In these immaculately crafted and powerful, polyphonic poems, Usha Akella issues a rallying cry for all women to unite, resist and fight the violence of the patriarchy.
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 Shamini Sriskandarajah’s short and beautiful poem, ‘Cypress’, two people sit under the quiet warmth of a leylandii tree reflecting on past moments of togetherness.
In Olivia Rosane’s enchanting and evocative rites-of-passage poem, ‘Maiden’s Tears’, a young woman realises her own inner power and strength when encountering a small wildflower in an open field.
Sophia Naz’s lush and imagistic poems describe the fallen splendour of a wilting sunflower, the passing of a season and a desolate landscape of leafless redwood trees.
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.
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s poems offer a solitary space for readers to meditate on nature’s quiet truths, a locus in which to reorientate the self and speak in a new language of trees, birds, waterfalls and winding valleys.
Our Poetry editor, Usha Akella, recalls her time studying for an MSt. in Creative Writing at Cambridge and considers how the flora and fauna of the city inspired her writing and helped her navigate and connect with a new place.
Poet and Lucy Writers’ Poetry editor, Usha Akella, writes of the South Asian Diaspora Poets’ Collective festival, Matwaala, which she founded several years ago.
