aja monet’s poetry points to the communal — to protest, to performance, to “the door to door blues of organizing in south florida.” A poet of “Caribbean descent and American dissent,” as Robin D. G. Kelley has described her, she won acclaim as a teenage slam poet, drew attention to police killings of Black women with #SayHerName, and started a community music studio in Miami. A trip to Palestine in 2015, she has said, “politicized me in a way that there was no going back.” Since, she’s published the acclaimed My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter and made plays and poetry albums and gone on tour with them. Her new poetry collection Florida Water is out now from Haymarket.
Where are you right now?
Los Angeles, CA.
What are you never without?
spirit.
When and where do you do your best thinking?
wherever, whenever.
What’s the last project you abandoned?
a toxic relationship.
Favorite novel?
The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak.
Favorite smell?
cocoa butter.
What’s your utopia?
i don’t have one.
How are you experiencing gender these days?
this is a strange question. intersectionally? it’s not real but i face its repercussions daily.
What’s your luxury that money can’t buy?
time.
What do you fantasize about?
a place where love overcomes the power of fear. living with deep reverence for the planet.
Here's why we publish
Feminist thought is increasingly banned from universities and marginalized in billionaire-owned media. We’re proud to publish it. While these institutions are firing feminists, we’re hiring them — as brave journalists, writers, and artists who challenge ideas about gender at every level.
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