Say Her Name

Never to forget, or allow

Our sisters’ lives to be erased;

Their presence cannot be replaced.

This senseless slaughter must stop now.

Award-winning author Zetta Elliott engages poets from the past two centuries to create a chorus of voices celebrating the creativity, resilience, and courage of Black women and girls. Inspired by the #SayHerName campaign launched by the African American Policy Forum, these poems pay tribute to victims of police brutality as well as the activists championing the Black Lives Matter cause. This compelling collection reveals the beauty, danger, and magic found at the intersection of race and gender.

Winner of the 2021 Lion & the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry!

Named a 2020 Book of the Year for Young People by Quill & Quire and a 2020 “Best of the Best” YA Title by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. SAY HER NAME was nominated for the YALSA 2021 Nonfiction Award and is a Top Ten title for Rise: A Feminist Book Project. The Cooperative Children’s Book Center included SAY HER NAME in its 2021 Choices List and the Ontario Library Association named it a 2021 “Best Bet.” The audiobook was a finalist for the 2021 Audies and Channie Waites won the Audiophile Earphones Award! Listen to an excerpt here. Bank Street College of Education’s 2021 Edition of the Best Children’s Books of the Year (12-14 year olds)

Available from Hachette. Order here. (When you purchase one of my books from my Bookshop storefront, I receive an affiliate commission)

Say Her Name is a tribute to Black women, in verse. Zetta Elliott’s poems are parcels of joy and empowerment; the kind that could easily become personal mantras or sources of strength. While the poems are accessible to young people, parents and guardians will get the chills, as well.

~ Jacqueline Woodson for O Magazine

VERDICT This collection is inspirational, uplifting, and encouraging for readers of all genders. Elliott may not think of herself as a poet, but her creativity and deft wielding of rich language prove otherwise.

~ School Library Journal, starred review

Zetta Elliott has given readers a challenging, provocative, and beautiful collection of poems. While male readers could certainly enjoy and learn from them, the collection is aimed at female readers. The poems are a combination of Elliott’s own work and the collected work of various artists, both known and unknown. Two poems, “We Are Wise” and “We Can’t Breathe,” were inspired by Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, “We Real Cool”…The reader will also want to be sure to read the introduction as it offers crucial insight into how the collection came into being. Elliott also provides a credit page, but the notes she has provided which illuminate why and how the poems were written are a treasure trove in themselves. I highly recommend this book for high school readers. Young students could probably read it, but it does contain some raw feelings which might be too intense for younger readers. This collection could be useful for English teachers as a discussion starter regarding the various elements of poetry.

~ School Library Connection, starred review

These poems are not just sitting on the page. They demand engagement.  They ask readers to feel something, to acknowledge truths, to take care of themselves, to celebrate, and to remember the names of those who are gone. Readers would be hard-pressed to ignore or be unmoved by these wonderfully crafted spellbinding messages.

~ Rich in Color