salt by nayyirah waheed
In truth, I bought this to read after a discussion with a student of mine. I read Milk and Honey around the same time she did, and she came in telling me that this was almost as good. Well, we all know that I am not a poetry aficionado, so I would not presume to say that this was almost as good. What I do know is that this book of poems did not touch me in any way resembling the way Milk and Honey touched me.
This is not to say that I didn't like the poems; I did. However, there were several that I just did not relate to, particularly those which showed the poet's hate of those of us with white skin.
And this is something I don't understand: if a white person had written the things this poet had, it would be racist. But since the poet is black, it's somehow ok to write those things, and it's not racist? This. This is why racism will never go away.
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