Imani Tolliver

Imani Tolliver is a poet with a big heart, and inside her big heart there is a big fireplace, where lines of poetry crackle like logs and the glow from the fireplace is the kind of light that will sustain you long after you have gotten up and walked away. In this day and age, we have tanning salons, and implants for every which body part, well Tolliver's poetry feeds that endangered species: the soul. 
Jeffrey McDaniel, Creative Writing Professor at Sarah Lawrence College and author of

The Endarkenment, The Splinter Factory, Alibi School, and The Forgiveness Parade


With distilled language purified though heartache and stinging beauty, these poems are double-edged swords disguised as literature.  Imani Tolliver has come to cut us deep.
Michael Datcher, Clinical Professor at Loyola Marymount University, award-winning poet, journalist, critic, and bestselling author of Raising Fences: A Black Man's Love Story 

Imani Tolliver's work sings in the poetry of life.  It is always familiar, always touching; it helps us to see our humanity and reach further toward spirit.
Jenoyne Adams, bestselling author of Resurrecting Mingus and Selah's Bed

What strikes me most about Imani Tolliver's work is the honesty, a naked soul dressed in the clothing of well crafted imagery and story. Her voice pierces clearly through the field of mediocrity to an exalted place under the sun.
Kamau Daa'ood, poet and author of The Language of Saxphones: Selected Poems, Leimert Park and Co-Founder of The World Stage Performance Gallery

Imani's poems are anthems to family, love and freedom. Tolliver offers windows and mirrors in her poetry--open vision and multifaceted interior reflection. If you can go as deep as she does in this work, you'll experience a profoundly lyrical voice and a wise one, too.
Eloise Klein Healy, author of six collections of poetry, founder of Arktoi Books, Professor Emerita at Antioch University Los Angeles, and Co-Founder of Eco-Arts