I have only discovered her work recently, and she passed away last February shortly after i first read her anthology, "Good Times".
She has many collections of poems from her youth to her old age. Her favorite subjects of writing were African American History, feminist themes and particularly her body. I love her imagery. Her use of similes and motif are elaborate yet not contrived.
the lost baby poem
the time i dropped your almost body down
down to meet the waters under the city
and run one with the sewage to the sea
what did i know about waters rushing back
what did i know about drowning
or being drowned
you would have been born into winter
in the year of the disconnected gas
and no car we would have made the thin
walk over genesee hill into the canada wind
to watch you slip like ice into strangers’ hands
you would have fallen naked as snow into winter
if you were here i could tell you these
and some other things
if i am ever less than a mountain
for your definite brothers and sisters
let the rivers pour over my head
let the sea take me for a spiller
of seas let black men call me stranger
always for your never named sake
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