February is Black History Month, an annual celebration to honor African-Americans, their history, achievements, and what the people before them fought for. With the Black Lives Matter movement and Kamala Harris becoming our first ever Black woman Vice President, now more than ever is a time to celebrate Black History.

In a 2016 speech President Barack Obama said Black History Month is “about taking an unvarnished look at the past so we can create a better future. It’s a reminder of where we as a country have been so that we know where we need to go."

In celebration of Black History Month, Award Winning Poet and Best Selling Author Katerina Canyon has announced the upcoming release of her book Surviving Home, a reflection on African American heritage and up-bringing.

Concisely arresting and challenging the beliefs of family and the fantasies of tradition, the poems in Surviving Home show that home is a place that you endure rather than a place where you are nurtured. With unyielding cadence and unparalleled sadness and warmth, Katerina Canyon contemplates the prejudice and limitations buried in a person's African American heritage: parents that seem to care for you with one hand and slap you with the other, the secret desires to be released from the daily burdens of life, as well as the surprising ways a child chooses to amuse herself. Finding resilience in the unexpected, this collection tears down the delicate facades of family.

Here is an excerpt from Surviving Home:

Sojourner

Truth is where I found you

In the cusp high over ultraviolet waves

Between your time as a slave and mine

Fighting off the results of bondage.

You were a woman who accepted no

Excuses for the lack of rights

For our mothers and daughters,

Demanded more for those who followed.

I am a woman who accepts that most

White men are fixed on one idea

As to how the world should be,

And it is on me to change their minds

Through words, or actions, but never

Through guns or swords, white bonnet

Wrapped on my head as I push

Away racial insults and profanity.

You never forgot to say who a woman

Could be, what a Black woman could do

When we eschewed weakness and misogyny.

No one helped you. You just carved the trail.

No one helps me either. That’s what I learned

It means to be a Black woman.

To be strong, to plough, to plant, to raise barns.

That’s what you did. I do that metaphorically.



Now, I raise children, plough through journals

With my pen. I always remember to never

Pin my tongue for fear of other’s thoughts

This is the way you walked.



I try to get my half measure full,

But I think it is a little less

Difficult for me as it was

For you. Thank you for the

Quarter you earned.

It took us a long way, but

Today, the world is still

Turned upside down

And we are working

Hand by hand to

Flip it

Right side up

About the Author:
Katerina Canyon is an Award Winning Poet, Best Selling Author, civil rights activist, essayist, and poet. She grew up in Los Angeles and much of her writing reflects that experience.

Her first book of poetry, Changing the Lines, was released in August 2017. This work is a conversation between mother and daughter as they examine what it means to operate within the world as black women.

Katerina Canyon is a 2020 and 2019 Pushcart Prize Nominee. Her stories have been published in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and Folks. Her poetry has been published in CatheXis Northwest, The Esthetic Apostle, Into the Void, Black Napkin, and Waxing & Waning. From 2000 to 2003, she served as the Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga. During that time, she started a poetry festival and ran several poetry readings. She has a B.A. in English, International Studies and Creative Writing from Saint Louis University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

Katerina moved to Seattle three years ago. She is currently running a civil rights campaign against police brutality. More information can be found at www.vdaycampaign.org.

Katerina's latest book, Surviving Home, will be released in October 2021 published by Kelsay Books.

Readers can connect with Katerina on Instagram, Twitter, Goodreads, and Facebook. To learn more, go to https://www.poetickat.com/

To request a review copy of Surviving Home or an interview with Katerina Canyon, please contact Kelsey at Book Publicity Services at (805) 807-9027 or Kelsey ( @ ) BookPublicityServices dot com