aja monet photo credit Daniel N. Johnson
Surrealist blues poet and cultural worker aja monet has announced her latest collection Florida Water is set for release June 3rd via Haymarket Books. Florida Water, the highly anticipated follow-up to her acclaimed debut My Mother was A Freedom Fighter and her Grammy-nominated album When The Poems Do What They Do (where a handful of poems in the new collection made their debut), immerses us deeper into the currents of memory, struggle, and survival that pull us toward both despair and hope. States monet, “these poems are a vulnerable meditation as i reflect on migrating to South Florida in search of love, connection, and belonging, unearthing the delicate balance between the poet, lover, and community organizer.” In Florida Water, each poem is an artifact—an offering from her time spent wading through the rising tides of climate change, heartbreak, and systemic violence. Florida Water is a collection of poems that, like the cleansing waters of spiritual baths, rinse, reflect, and reveal the raw truths that lie within.
Since cutting her teeth within the walls of the legendary Nuyorican Poets Café, where she won the title of Grand Slam Champion in 2007 at age 19, making her the youngest Grand Slam Champion in the venue’s history, monet has emerged as a singular artist fluidly moving between mediums. Her organization and activism efforts manifest as part of a process toward liberation, with her poems, music, and art she serves as the scribe of our time. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, aja co-edited Chorus: A Literary Mixtape alongside poet-actor-director Saul Williams and published her first full length poetry collection My Mother was A Freedom Fighter with Haymarket Books in 2017. She followed up with the Grammy-nominated album When The Poems Do What They Do, a unique and stunning fusion of jazz and poetry, in 2023 to widespread acclaim including New York Times, NPR, LA Times, Pitchfork, and more.
Pre-order Florida Water https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2099-florida-water
Advanced Praise for Florida Water “This is aja monet at her most lucid and vulnerable, offering an intimate portrait in love, drowning in it, and kissing us each time she comes up for air.The politics of love and memory betrothed to a poet’s passion to touch and be touched by perspective—and in real ways—she holds herself inher own arms, yet somehow we, all our loved ones and blessed ancestors, fit in her embrace. Here is where ma- turity and grace never forgets to remindus of its edge, its pain, and unanswered questions—where a moment in time finds its timelessness. Here is a poet ripen- ing beyond her bruises,clear-eyed and lovingly, sprinkling holy water on angels and demons alike.” — Saul Williams “aja monet always opens the portal.... Read her work and prepare to time travel into the possibilities of your own heart and our beloved community.” — Alexis Pauline Gumbs “The stewards of this land and the Africans dragged here tell us water is life. Channeling ancestral wisdom, aja monet shows us water is also love,power, re- flection, blue(s), bodies. Water heals, cleanses, blesses; it gives life and can take it away. Water is older than history and yet never forgets.aja monet’s poems are water, and these poems were born at the crossroads of the world, where Turtle Island meets the Caribbean Sea. In thisdeath-dealing world, Florida Water will quench our collective thirst for living.” — Robin D. G. Kelley “aja monet is a poet’s poet. She uses the language like a painter.... Her love and grief for humanity is paramount. Her hopes and dreams are for a better world.” — Abiodun Oyewole
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