When We Make It (Hardcover)Sarai uses verse to navigate the strain of family traumas and the systemic pressures of toxic masculinity and housing insecurity in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn, questioning the society around her, her Boricua identity, and the life she lives.

Sawyer was a troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at a local high school before taking his own life

and practice

And secrets always find their way through the cracks

Ailey embarks on a journey through her family's past

maybe it's what you eat

Torment is a crashing wave of emotion

" Powered by courageous hope and imagination

Addy joins five other Black city kids--each with their own troubles--to spend a summer out west

Langston Hughes

though she hesitates to confess that this is also her day job

the PBS series The United States of Poetry

life-giving messages of our own souls