Woke Up No Light: Poems

A poignant and rousing debut book of poetry from the acclaimed, best-selling author of the novel Nightcrawling, also the former Youth Poet Laureate of Oakland, CA.

Leila Mottley follows her trailblazing first novel with a perfectly pitched first collection of poems that demonstrate her energy and range. poems for reckoning day is full of heart and edge, subtlety and fluidity. Moving in sections from "girlhood" to "neighborhood" to "falsehood" to, finally, "womanhood," these poems open up the experiences of a young Black woman with immediacy and wisdom. In "Crow Feet," Mottley casts her vision wide enough to take in history, the ongoing struggle for justice across generations of a family. In “For the Women I Twerk to," she zeroes in on a body in motion, with intimacy and abandon.

poems for reckoning day confirms Leila Mottley's arrival and demonstrates the enduring power of her voice--brave and distinctive and thoroughly her own.