NO MORE HASHTAGS

A collection of poetry that explores police brutality and racism toward members of black communities in America.

Leak (Faith of our Founders, Ed., 2015) offers her first compilation of original poems. In three sections, she emotionally addresses the history and current state of black people in the United States. The first deals directly with the “#SayHerName” movement, which seeks to increase awareness of the stories of black, female victims of police brutality. Each poem re-creates and comments on a moment when a black woman was gunned down by the police, as in “They Be Comin,’ ” an early poem about Kendra James, who was killed by police in 2003: “They be comin’ single siren / They be comin’ with lights of blue / .… / They be comin’ to put a gun to your head.” This effectively sets the tone of urgency that runs throughout the collection. The second section, titled “#TheBrothers,” addresses black, male victims. In “Chillin,’ ” about  16-year-old Traveres McGill, who was shot dead by police in 2005, she writes, “Just chillin’ with my boys / …. / Bullets flying, shot in the back, no one expected / the night to end like this / Just chillin’ with my boys.” One of the most powerful pieces, “Just Stand,” addresses the Trayvon Martin murder: “From Douglass, Dubois, Washington, and even / to the dream of King, / We have stood marching arm in arm, crying for / justice not realizing what it would mean.” The third and final section, “Just Us,” traces the history of black communities, reaching back to slavery: “Men haggling over prices of humans / ….No country, no home, no family.” Over the course of this collection, Leak expertly balances the facts of her subjects’ deaths with the poetic form, which she ably uses to express larger feelings of desperation and exasperation. Community and togetherness is a major motif, and she addresses how groups can provide hope in the midst of historical atrocities, as well as how they’ve been ripped apart by more recent events.

A powerful and topical examination of tragedy.