Monique Jonath reads from their poem, 'sestina for my mother and her mother before that.' This poem is not yet published, but Jonath has other works of poetry published in the Youthspeaks Anthology, Between My Body and the Air.
Monique is a queer black jewish poet from Oakland, CA. Their mother is from the Democratic Republic of Congo and they are descended from the Bemba people. They wrote this poem using the shrinking sestina form, which involves choosing 6 words that appear only at the end of lines in a shifting order from stanza to stanza until you get one stanza that is just those words.
Poems air on KALW 91.7 FM at 7:19 a.m. and 4:18 p.m. weekdays throughout February. This month we’re highlighting poems by local Black poets in honor of Black History Month.
