Freedom Knows My Name
by Kelly Harris-DeBerry

Introduction by Kalamu ya Salaam

“Freedom Knows My Name is electric. Kelly mixes brilliant poetics with the political. Read this book and don’t stop there. Scan the book and be transported to audio versions of some poems that truly capture the poet’s literary and oral magic. Experience this book.” —Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Author of We Cast a Shadow

Freedom Knows My Name takes readers on a poetic journey of seeking collective and personal freedom as a Black woman. By scanning the QR code on the back of the book, readers are transported to the author reading selected poems such: “For the Women Who Save Me,” “Ms. Potato Head (for Rachel Dolezal).” Harris-DeBerry’s verbal autopsy of Dolezal’s transracial declaration is masterful. The poet also explores her family’s migration roots from the South to Cleveland and Ohio to living in New Orleans in the poem, “Super Sunday.” Poet icon, Sonia Sanchez, is also celebrated in “Sonia.”

Kalamu ya Salaam calls Harris-DeBerry, “the sound of wonderful” in his introduction.