other titles...

WHEN THE POEMS DO WHAT THEY DO
  1. I am
  2. why my love?
  3. black joy
  4. unhurt
  5. weathering
  6. the perfect storm
  7. the devil you know
  8. what makes you feel loved?
  9. for Sonia
  10. yemaya
  11. castaway
  12. give thanks
  13. for the kids who live

aja monet

WHEN THE POEMS DO WHAT THEY DO

Drink Sum Wtr
  • black 2lp in gatefold sleeve + poster

    £41.99
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On her debut album, we glimpse her indefatigable commitment to speak.

The thematic origins of this album at times centre on Black resistance, love and the inexhaustible quest for joy. In when the poems do what they do aja monet appears as a woman of letters and storm, her poems do not roar in pentameter - but rather in storm surge because, “Who’s got time for poems when the world is on fire?!.” And this work isn’t one to pull apart into one liners, these are poems of things felt. There is a fullness here that can’t be encapsulated in even the boundaries that language offers. aja monet is a griot, a storyteller, a chronicler, and your grandmother telling you about her first love all at once.
These are baby making poems - literally the spring enacting upon the cherry trees. These are poems of urgency and want and the rallying cry to demolish the insidious systems from which our futures seem to be wrought, in other words,“If we had a sense of humor we’d be more radical. More migrant than citizen we’d breathe the air clean and ration our resources…we would melt ALL the guns.” You will find yourself readying arms because of these poems, and simultaneously mourning the unstoppable loss of names already destined to be immortalized. aja monet crafts a work as she always does, that can be entered from many doors. These aren’t poems for poets, but poems for everyone