Full Description
We Are Not Wearing Helmets is a collection of political love poems rendered through the eyes of Cheryl Boyce‑Taylor, an immigrant living in New York City. For many women of color, aging in America means experiencing a lack of proper medical treatment, inhumane living conditions, poor nutrition, and often isolation. Many seniors feel thrown away, useless, and vulnerable. These poems challenge the injustices of ageism, racism, and oppression with rage, forgiveness, honor, and endurance. During these rough political times, they are salve and balm.
Born in Trinidad and having grown up in Queens, Boyce‑Taylor creates a framework for her own experience out of the life experiences and work of beloved Black women in history. She salutes the women who have lifted her, including Audre Lorde, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ntozake Shange, and Winnie Mandela, as well as her mother, Eugenia Boyce, and her beloved daughter‑in‑law, Deisha Head Taylor.
The poems in this collection are unapologetic, fierce, and confrontational while remaining caring and intimate. They stand strong in the face of adversity and boldly demand what is owed while still honoring and cherishing what is loved.
Contents
Devouring the Light, 1968
First Amendment Rights
Landay for Fannie Lou Hamer
We Are Not Wearing Helmets
Lessons: A Zuihitsu
Harvest
No More War Poems
Pigeon Point, Tobago
Crossing Rivers
Cry
Huevos Rancheros and Frozen Margaritas
Lottery Brooklyn
Red White Blue
When Sky Fell
Huffy
Call Me Monkey
June Plums
Leo
Road to Banjul
Lemon Verbena
Moonflower
Glory
Mama
First Born
What to Do on the First Anniversary of Your Son's Death
Tenth Grade Fly
Heirloom Corn
For Alem
A Woman Speaks
1962, Everybody Pretty
For the Love of Tennyson & Langston
On McKinley Drive
Last European Trip I Took with Mother
Change Purse Filled with Foreign Coins
You Braid Your Hair
The Home You Left Long Ago
A Cento for Winnie Mandela
Ntozake's Crimson Orchids
Rodlyn's Roots
End of Lent
Howl for Maya Angelou
Maya Calling June Jordan
Adrienne
Say Her Name: Breonna Taylor
Brave
Confessions of a Brooklyn Poet
Call Her Delphinium
Revolution
Beloved Country
I Prefer
On Repeat
Praise for Her Noisy Laughter
How to Make Art
Trade - In A Pandemic
Saturn Returning
I am Nothing Compared To
Here: In Our Time of War
Dreamscape
Let's Make a Drum: Let There Be Singing
Biography
