Leila Mottley has an incredibly powerful young voice. These poems have undeniable energy, power, and promise to them. I can't wait to follow her career for decades to come.

I loved Nightcrawling so I was thrilled when I saw this. I truly enjoyed this beautifully written powerful collection of poetry. I’ve been trying to expand my genres and poetry is something that can easily be hit or miss for me. I’m happy to say that this (like I knew it would be) was a hit.

Powerful & accessible poetry from the debut author of NIGHTCRAWLING. Motlley is a voice to watch for. Thanks for the ARC!

Am I the only one that feels like all the Black authors have been snapping with their poem collections this year? I mean literally every one I’ve read did not disappoint!!!

Mottley came out the gate swinging with her collection popping things off with “A Case For/Against Reparations”. Moving in sections from “girlhood” to “neighborhood” to “falsehood” to, finally, “womanhood,” I think quite a few of the poems will resonate with many.

Favorite poems:
* A Case For/Against Reparations
* Raising Somebody’s Future Woman
* Elijah McCain’s Last Words
* Under the Tongue
* What to do when you see a black woman cry

It’s a really short collection so I think for readers to really grasp the concept and message Mottley is trying to deliver you have to savor each one. Touching on themes surrounding reparations, restitution, culture, coming-of-age, the black female body, sexuality, hyper-sexualization, healing and desire. The author does an amazing job incorporating personal experiences and relevant social issues into her verses.

Overall, it’s a collection I highly recommend. Special thanks to the author & @aaknopf for my gifted e-ARC!!!

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.

Mottley separates her collection of poems into 4 different chunks - Girlhood, Neighborhood, Falsehood, Womanhood. Each section delves into Mottley's different lived experiences and explores different topics (ie Black girlhood, Black womanhood, living in Oakland, sexuality, etc). This collection is powerful and I'd highly recommend it to folks who enjoy poetry or are open to enjoying poetry.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

This poetry collection is the first offering from this author who dazzled with her fiction debut Nightcrawling. What Mottley attempts to do here in this poetry offering falls a bit flat though for a non-poetry reader. Thematically, I appreciated how the work used themes women and race to pull out emotion on the page. But, this book while I enjoyed it overall, wasn’t a good fit for me.

I loved Leila Mottley's novel, NIGHTCRAWLING, and I'm so impressed that she can also write a very solid poetry collection. This was excellent. It wasn't quite a 5-star for me—there were a couple of times when I was like, "Hmm, I don't know about that,"—but there were also plenty of times where I thought, "Wow. That's an amazing line." These poems, which address Black girlhood and womanhood from various angles, are GREAT ones overall. (4.5 stars, rounded up)

*This review is based on a digital ARC provided by the publisher. All opinions are 100% honest and my own.

Another poetry collection!! This one I downloaded because I LOVED Nightcrawling, it was one of my favorite books of 2022. I remember reading it and thinking about how beautiful the language was, and that carries into this poetry collection.

I loved reading this, the author is such a fantastic writer. The poems were so powerful, and if you’re a poetry reader, you definitely need to pick this one up.

Thank you @netgalley and @aaknopf for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

📖Genres: poetry, poems

📚Page Count: 104

🎧Audiobook Length: 01:32

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 5/5

woke up no light: poems is a poetry collection by Leila Mottley, the author of "Night Crawling". This poetry collection is raw, amazing, and it honestly blew me away. The poems are about being Black in America, most are about being a Black woman in America. The author talks about race, social justice, police brutality, misogynoir, sexual assault, and much more. Mottley writes some painful truths in such an elegant and gritty way.

There are too many individual works that I liked or that resonated with me to list them all, but I particularly liked the poems in the two sections "girlhood" and "womanhood". The "neighborhood" section made me cry, I'm still processing what I've read overall.

Overall, this collection was moving and it was written with such grace. I definitely resonated with most of the poems in this collection.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 Stars

Thank you <a href="https://www.netgalley.com/">[NetGalley.com]</a>, the author, and publisher for the arc (advanced reader's copy.)

Perhaps best known for her debut novel, Nightcrawling, which earned her a spot on the Booker longlist at the age of 20, Leila Mottley was also the Youth Poet Laureate of Oakland at the age of 16.

Accolades aside, Mottley is a truly gifted poet. I've read excerpts from Nightcrawling (and need to read the book in its entirety), and even when writing prose, she brings so much lyricism to her work.

I've read a handful of poetry collections this year, and I'll be the first to admit that while reading several of them, I often felt lost--not really sure what the poet was talking about, even if I appreciated their writing. But in Woke Up No Light, Mottley's meaning is clear and powerful. She is writing in the wake of the events of 2020. She is writing about sexuality and body autonomy and politics and police brutality and colonization and race and place (this collection is very much a tribute to Oakland).

Thank you to @NetGalley and @aaknopf for my advanced digital copy.

Leila’s collection of poetry is an illustrative window into the lives, feelings, and concerns of young Black women. It is full of very powerful imagery and arresting and moving turns of phrase that shone like stars among a background of constellations. I would recommend this collection to anyone interested in the particular vexations and cares of Black women who are a part of gen Z.

This is a beautiful collection of poems from Leila Mottley showcasing what it was like to grow up as a black woman in Oakland. It was raw and sincere and it hit on so many taboo topics. The queer representation was so good. She really helped me understand a life I would never experience just due to my own location and race. She never oversimplifies what it means to be a Black woman and for that I am forever grateful for her opening up her heart and mind to all women across the world to inspire.

These poems are personal, with a strong sense of voice. Many of them deal with identity and growing up as a Black woman; they are of the moment and engage with current issues.

This collection is accessible, but not easy--it's ambitious and layered enough for the poetry enthusiast but also open to new readers who are testing out poetry.

Thanks to the publisher, the author, and Netgalley for my earc. My opinions are all my own.

Mottley’s poetry debut begs to be read. I read this collection in two sittings and it probably would have been all in one if I hadn’t been interrupted. I loved the way we journeyed with her through sections from “girlhood” to “neighborhood” and eventually “womanhood.” She covers a variety of topics in honest, accessible, yet poignant language. There were definitely moments when I had to stop and reread a phrase because it demanded its bittersweetness demanded to be savored.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for the e-ARC!

When I read Leila Mottley's debut novel, Nightcrawling, I remember thinking how much her lyrical prose read like poetry, so I couldn't wait to read her debut poetry collection, woke up no light. And it absolutely blew me away.

The poems are divided into four categories, or phases of life -- girlhood, neighborhood, falsehood, and womanhood -- and explore the wide range of the female experience, specifically Black girlhood and womanhood. They're modern in their execution, but draw on the past to make bold statements and poignant observations about being a Black girl in America today. They are intensely personal, emotionally devastating, and fiercely unapologetic, and a few of them left me breathless.

My favorite poem was "my great-grandmother's hand in the back pocket of all your jeans," and here are just a few of my favorite lines across the collection (definitely hard to narrow down, because I highlighted something on nearly every page):

When you grow up, you will forget
it all. And isn't that a solace?


To be Black and
Girl is to not only fear the slaughter
of your body, but to fear the body itself.


If biology could explain it all
we would never know of fairies or prayers

woke up no light is a moving poetry collection that I know I'll revisit frequently. Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the complimentary reading opportunity.

a stunning and powerful collection. pulls from the modern and the before in such skillful ways. good book for poetry readers of any level

Leila Mottley crafts noteworthy and masterful poetry. A talented voice with a keen eye, and an inviting form.

Mottley's poetry is raw and sincere and pulls not a single, solitary punch. She talks about race, about family history, about LGBTQIA+ identity, and the intersection of all those things. One of my favorites, near the end of the collection, grapples with what it means to bring children into a world that's on the brink of climate crisis, and whether queer couples seeing fertility treatment through things like IVF are more culpable for their children's futures than straight couples who can at least claim that their pregnancy was an accident. Coming on the heels of poems about ancestry, in particular an erasure poem derived from a will declaring the fate of enslaved people as inheritable property, this is all the more powerful. Both past and future are called into question, not only for the poet, but for the reader as well.

Poetry and nonfiction, especially when it exposes so many of the poet's wounds, is hard to rate objectively in the limited framework of a star category. Per usual with chapbooks, four stars means I really liked it and would recommend it. Mottley's work is absolutely worth reading. My personal preference is for poetry that uses surprising language or unexpected forms. Others may find that the more direct free verse style preferable.

Poetry can be hit or miss for me but this one knocked it out of the park! She is so talented it's unreal. I will be returning to this one often to re read some favorites.