SAY IT LIKE A PRAYER
Sacred Words for Liberation, Hope, and Healing
A powerful anthology of prayers and poems for navigating crisis, sustaining resistance, and imagining a more just future. With contributions from major literary activist voices like adrienne maree brown, Joy Harjo, Chani Nicholas, Hala Alyan, and Prentis Hemphill, Say It Like a Prayer is to be carried and cherished—into the streets, into moments of celebration and grief, through uncertainty, crises, and the daily rhythms of our lives.
Coming March 16, 2027
A bold and life-giving curation of missives sent into the ether to save and repair, which is, to my mind, the oldest and most formidable use of language. How lucky to be reminded of its power here, both on the page and inside these dire hours.
-Ocean Vuong, NYT bestselling author
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About the book
Say It Like a Prayer, edited by Dori Midnight, is a bold, soul-steadying anthology of over a hundred prayers and poems for a world full of transformation and uncertainty. Gathering invocations, blessings, meditations, spells, and counterspells from beloved community organizers, faith leaders, change makers, and poets, this collection speaks directly to the universal need to do the necessary work of imagining and believing in a more beautiful future and a thriving present.
These are “prayers that are also poems, blessings that are also spells”—written to be lived with, returned to, and shared. This is a book meant to be dog-eared and marked up; opened at protests and vigils, celebrations and memorials, rallies and rituals; passed hand to hand and given as a lifeline to those weathering hard times. Contained within these pages are prayers for protection before an action and for the end of a meeting, prayers for breaking up, falling in love, and cultivating more erotic aliveness. Blessings over children, seasons, and tactics of resistance. Prayers for breaking old patterns and becoming ever new, sacred intentions for letting go with grace and showing up with rigor, and poems that can infuse our lives with meaning and reverence.
Drawing from multiple traditions and lineages, Say It Like a Prayer is a call to practice and a companion for collective struggle. It meets that need, offering spiritual nourishment without dogma and reverence without retreat. These are words to help us endure collapse, navigate change, and stay tender and fierce in the face of uncertainty—words to carry us through personal and collective crisis, and toward the futures we are still brave enough to believe in.
Contributors include: George Abraham, Hala Alyan, Fatimah Asghar, Cameron Awkward-Rich, hannah baer, Morgan Bassichis, adrienne maree brown, CAConrad, Edgar Fabián Frías, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Joy Harjo, Prentis Hemphill, Tricia Hersey, Donika Kelly, Andrea Lawlor, Chani Nicholas, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lama Rod Owens, Fariha Roísin, Yumi Sakugawa, Sam Sax, Danez Smith, Dean Spade, Sonya Renee Taylor, Kai Cheng Thom, brontë velez, Norma Ryūkō Kaewlokū Wong, J Wortham, and more.
“The need for prayer has never been more clear. Thankfully Dori Midnight’s Say It Like a Prayer generously delivers prayer in abundance: prayer for troubles and prayer for pleasure and prayer for power. Say It Like a Prayer guides the reader towards a keener awareness and appreciation of the real spiritual connections underpinning our lives while urging us to act from that same place of spiritual power. You don’t need to believe in prayer to enjoy this blessed collection, Say It Like a Prayer deeply believes in you.”
-Tourmaline, artist and activist
