W. J. Lofton writes vivid, accessible poems that channel the energy, urgency, ambitions, joys, and sorrows of a young Black queer artist. They are about love and flirtation, sweet tea and hot sauce, God and family, life and death, police brutality and extrajudicial killings.
His verses honor some of the young lives extinguished by these killings—Breonna Taylor, Kendrick Johnson, Ahmaud Arbery. He also pays tribute to some of the towering figures of Black culture who have come before him—Richard Pryor, Assata Shakur.
His style is endlessly propulsive, informed by some of the Harlem Renaissance greats—Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks—but also transforming that rich tradition for the present day.
About the Series
Raised Voices is a poetry series established in 2021 to raise marginalized voices and perspectives, to publish poems that affirm progressive values and are accessible to a wide readership, and to celebrate poetry’s ability to access truth in a way that no other form can