POSTCOLONIAL LOVE POEM by Natalie Diaz

Poetry is a strange something that engages nearly all of us as children—from nursery rhymes, to song lyrics, to high school journals and love letters—yet seems to elude many of us as adults. It’s a shame, but it also makes contemporary collections like POST COLONIAL LOVE POEM by Natalie Diaz all the more remarkable. Diaz is a queer Mojave American poet, language activist, former professional basketball player, and educator. This book is her second collection and was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in poetry, was a finalist for the National Book Award, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and shortlisted for the 2020 T. S. Eliot Prize.

One might assume this collection is as intimidating as its accolades, but personally, I found it to be accessible through both its range and specificity. Diaz deftly covers the grounds between family and violence, nature and empire, the gentle and the explicit, all while generously offering her personal intimacies, experiences and emotions bare on the page. I first read it back in 2020 and have continued to think about it ever since. To quote fellow poet Reginald Dwayne Betts, “Natalie Diaz can be fiercely political, but, oh, my, can she also remind us to love.”

—Recommended by Tess