Toward a Sinners Poetry Reading List

• "tell the black girls" by Lamont Lilly (2016) --- Lilly toasts Black women in his poem, noting an inheritance passed down to them as one of natural beauty, power, and, and most notably, wonder-working. The poem calls to mind Annie, situating her among the lineage of Black women Lilly praises. Her dark-skinned, full-figured, natural-haired beauty matters as much as the power that comes from being her own boss. What's more, Annie's ways of being and knowing move from folk and speculative to real and practical in consequential ways (ask her man). Annie's abilities to read people, protect, and problem-solve save the day. --Cindy N. Reed

• "Molly Means" by Margaret Walker (1942) --- A poem about the spells of a Black woman witch in a southern town reminds contemporary audiences that the American South has long been a setting in creative representations for exploring the speculative and otherworldly, a tradition in which Coogler's film joins. --Cindy N. Reed

[Related: Toward a Sinners Nonfiction Reading List]

• "Flight to Canada" by Ishmael Reed (1976)  -- a comical poem about a fugitive slave on the go, which connects in some ways with the audacious Black men twin brothers in Coogler's film. --Howard Rambsy II

• "I Sing of Shine" by Etheridge Knight -- A poem derived from black men's folk songs and stories of bad men, a subject that connects with the experiences of Smoke and Stack. 

• "Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem" By Helene Johnson -- A Harlem Renaissance-era poem about a confident and bold Black man strolling down the street. It's an early 20th century bad man poem, linking to the twins Smoke and Stack. 

• “If We Must Die” by Claude McKay (1919) — A sonnet situated in the bloodstained grips of Red Summer when white supremacist terrorism wreaked havoc on Black communities across the country.

 The poem reads like a pep talk before the fight for one’s life and calls to mind Grace’s speech to the crew before she escalates the drama. —Cindy Reed 

• “Hey-Hey Blues” by Langston Hughes (1939) — A blues poem loaded with levity that boasts of a musician’s ability to keep the juke lively as long as he has the right drinks and a fellow musician on par with his skills. It’s reminiscent of early dialogues between Delta Slim and Preacher Boy. —Cindy Reed 

• “Share-Croppers” by Langston Hughes (1942) — A poem that highlights the labor, objectification, and destitution of many Black folks in the Jim Crow South who worked the land. Preacher Boy, Cornbread, and their fellow laborers understand the injustice of the job firsthand. —Cindy Reed 

• “For Saundra” by Nikki Giovanni (1968) — This free verse reminds us that if Black poetry is meant to reflect its times, then it won’t always be pretty or peaceful because times are rarely pretty and peaceful if you’re Black in America. Instead, the times are overtly and covertly violent and must be treated as such if we expect to survive, which is what the remaining jukers realize as they gather anything they can use for weapons. —Cindy Reed

Related: 

• A Notebook on Sinners