Ten books about African Americans reclaiming the South

Kortney Morrow is a poet and writer creating from her studio in Cleveland, Ohio. Her work has received support from 68to05, The Academy of American Poets, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Prairie Schooner, Tin House, and Transition Magazine.

Her debut poetry collection, Run It Back, was the winner of the 2024 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize.

At Electric Lit she tagged ten books that "guided my thinking around place-based liberation, the hopes we put into geography, and the complexities of reclaiming an ever-changing place in search of freedom." One title on the list:

Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith

These poems tell the story of Hurricane Katrina in minute-by-minute detail through a myriad of voices, including the storm itself. Smith looks at the wake of the storm, the lack of relief or repair, and bears witness to the racial and class violence of that historical moment. It’s important to remember that Smith isn’t a native daughter writing about her home, but a poet who took up the work of documenting this particular place in this particular moment in history with grave responsibility. Should a poet write solely from their own experiences or bear witness to the world? Smith’s book wrestles with these ethical questions about place, geography, and ownership. Blood Dazzler is a lesson to emerging writers that writing the record requires immense specificity and care. In doing so, Smith honors geography and then transcends it—revealing the intimacy of community and catastrophe in a new light.

Read about another book on Morrow's list.

--Marshal Zeringue