Inari Williams, 18, who is also a rapper, said some of his inspiration came from talking with people less fortunate than others. The homeless population in Chicago is very large, and sometimes I run into homeless people and they just want to be heard, he said. I try to give them a voice through my art.
Many of them expressed to me that they felt they had a responsibility to their communities to speak about the issues and injustices of those around them. They submitted poems for the project that focus on the Black Lives Matter movement, womens rights, L.G.B.T.Q. rights, what it means to be Black in America, police brutality, gun violence, the pandemic and self-care.
Leila Mottley, 18, of Oakland, Calif., who recently landed a book deal with Knopf, said, Im often contemplating girlhood and Black girlhood and what it means to attempt to find joy and family and community in situations that call for basic survival.
When I asked William Lohier, 19, of Brooklyn, why he thought poetry matters in this moment, he said that poetry had mattered in every moment and that the issues that he and others have confronted this year were the issues that every Black poet he knows has been thinking about since they started writing poetry.
I see poetry ultimately, he said, as a tool for Black liberation.read more
The New York Times Project on Young Black Poets Showcases a New Generation of Voices
