Description
Forthcoming in 2025.
A communion of spirit and self, on a date with disappointment invites you to dine with your heart and soul.
Roxbury Poetry Festival’s 2023 Winner Najya Williams’s latest chapbook works to understand the hardships and joys of family, love, and heartbreak. Entrancing in form and style, these poems trace relationships to the self and others through different moments in life—speaking to the complexities of black womanhood and seeking definition to oneself, loved ones, and the world.
on a date with disappointment is intimately breathtaking. A conversation, a journey, a holy incantation that belongs on every shelf.
Awards
Winner of the 2023 Roxbury Poetry Festival Publisher’s Poetry Slam
Praise for Najya Williams
“A fiercely spiritual and enthralling poetry collection. Najya Williams flexes her gift of rhythmic language and poetic form to tell honest tales about Black girl and womanhood. These poems punched my gut and made me smile at the same time.”
— Tony Keith Jr., author of How the Boogeyman Became a Poet
“Najya Williams’s newest collection, on a date with disappointment, delights in playing with form. Whether it’s pantoum, abecedarian, or prose poem each crackles with ‘ferocity and fury,’ balancing the savory with the sweet, the world’s anger with the speaker’s kindness. Williams’ states ‘This is an ode to / these warriors and wonders, / these saviors and sacrifices, / these fresh-faced grown women / and exhausted little girls.’ And what a worthy and ecstatic lyric she sings.”
— Erin Elizabeth Smith, author of DOWN
About Najya Williams
Najya A. Williams (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist who floats along the U.S. East Coast. She graduated from Harvard College and is a 2025 M.D. and Narrative Medicine Program Graduate from the Lewis Katz School of Medicine (Temple… MORE
