woke up no light is the first poetry collection by novelist Leila Mottley (Nightcrawling).  The 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate, Mottley is astonishingly now only 22 years old. I say “astonishingly” due to the quality and wisdom of the poems in woke up no light (Penguin, 2024). Mottley plays homage to her foremothers (both poetic and scholarly) with opening quotes by Ntozake Shange and Saidiya Hartman and exceptional poem “After Want by Joan Larkin.”  She writes about race and girlhood/womanhood with candor. If you want to understand a little bit about the joys and challenges faced by a mighty smart Gen Z writer, woke up no light is for you.