Night of the Hawk - by Lauren Martin (Paperback)

About the Book

Written for anyone who has experienced the isolation and marginalization that can accompany both illness and deep spiritual pursuit, this stunning collection of poetry is at once a tender homage to Yorùbá culture and the religion Ifá, a clear-eyed examination of modern-day America's sociopolitical landscape, and a raw account of the author's own journey through a frequently inhospitable world.

Book Synopsis

When I have wandered long enough what am I still beholden to?

Ifá. Nature. Illness. Love. Loss. Misogyny. Aging. Africa. Our wounded planet. In this sweeping yet intensely personal collection, Lauren Martin tells the untold stories of the marginalized, the abused, the ill, the disabled--the different. Inspired by her life's experiences, including the isolation she has suffered as a result both of living with chronic illness and having devoted herself to a religion outside the mainstream, these poems explore with raw vulnerability and unflinching honesty what it is to live apart--even as one yearns for connection.

But Night of the Hawk is no lament; it is powerful, reverential, sometimes humorous, often defiant--"Oh heat me and fill me / I rise above lines"--and full of wisdom. Visceral and stirring, the poems in this collection touch on vastly disparate subjects but are ultimately unified in a singular quest: to inspire those who read them toward kindness, compassion, and questioning.

Review Quotes

2024 Zibby Award Finalist, Best Book for Travelers
2024 Bookfest Award Winner: 2nd place, Poetry

"A work of primordial feminine beauty, Night of the Hawk is a poetic pleasure. Reading this panoramic collection is like flying, circling the earth, and diving down often to examine a place, predicament, or feeling. . . . a balm to readers--the work of a gifted poet with an original voice."--Foreword Reviews, 5/5 STARS

"Martin gives us a masterclass on what it means to convey thematic richness and emotional depth in contemporary poetry in Night of the Hawk, displaying the versatility of both form and function."
--Readers Favorite

"The poems gathered here address themes of survival, chronic illness, shamanism, and feminism against the backdrop of daily life. . . . The diversity of experience examined makes for a collection that is both full and human. A whole life in one volume."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Lauren's poems drop into your psyche and ripple outward, echoing in the moments of life. Their beauty haunts. She explores both all-too-human realities and spiritual aspirations. The Visible and Invisible reflecting one another. The surface and the depths. The sacred and the vile. In the interaction of the poles of these paradoxes, the mystical mind emerges and is drawn out in daily experience. Lauren is not afraid to ask the hard human questions of Spirit and not afraid to expect spiritual meaning of messy human encounters."
--Sallie Ann Glassman, Head Manbo Asogwe, La Source Ancienne Ounfo

"Night of the Hawk is a luminous and numinous collection about women and men, about betrayal and forbearance, about endurance, death, and art, and, most essentially, about the search for a sacred path through life. There is so much love in these poems; the jeweled lines sparkle and sing off the page--sometimes playful, sometimes frightening in their honesty, but always tender in their forgiveness of human foibles. Ms. Martin's voice is oracular, and her poems insist on their dignity and mystery even as they shoot on a zipline, fast and nimble, to your heart. She tells the truth, but as her forebear famously advised, she tells it slant. These are painful poems, but healing ones.
--Michael Laurence, award-winning playwright of Hamlet in Bed, Krapp39, and Cincinnatus


"Martin uses passionate, sometimes profane, language to speak out against misogyny and violence against women. Hers is a message of female empowerment and activism . . . Woven into a tapestry of emotional turmoil are poems celebrating friendship and inspiring hope, as Martin boldly declares, 'And one day I will dance...That day is today.'"--US Review of Books