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 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 is a bold anthology of more than one hundred prayers and poems for uncertain times. Gathering invocations, blessings, meditations, spells, and counterspells from beloved community organizers, faith leaders, changemakers, and poets, this collection offers language for the moments when we are called to grieve, resist, gather, transform—and imagine a more beautiful, liberatory future into being.
These are “prayers that are also poems, blessings that are also spells”: words meant to be lived with, spoken aloud, returned to, and shared. Open this book at protests and vigils, celebrations and memorials, rallies and rituals. Dog-ear its pages. Keep it on your kitchen table or by your bed. Full of prayers for starting and ending the day, cultivating courage before an action, and inviting in creative energy. Blessings for children, seasons, and tactics of resistance. Lamentations for Gaza, grieving the loss of a loved one, and prayers for loving between prison walls. Incantations for healing, breaking old patterns and becoming ever new, and summoning and seeding a new world. Drawing from multiple traditions and lineages, Say It Like a Prayer is a call to practice and a companion for collective struggle.
See the full list of contributors
- adrienne maree brown
- aesha rasheed
- Alexis Pauline Gumbs
- Andrea Lawlor
- anna k. blaedel
- Aurora Levins Morales
- Autumn Brown
- Azura Tyabji
- Bernadine Mellis
- brontë velez
- CAConrad
- Cameron Awkward Rich
- Cara Page
- Chani Nicholas
- Chiara Francesca Galimberti
- Cindy Barukh Milstein
- Cody Cook Parrott
- Cole Krawitz
- Danez Smith
- Dean Spade
- Donika Kelly
- Dori Midnight
- Durga Sreenivasan
- Edgar Fabián Frías
- Elliot Kukla
- Elliot batTzedek
- Endjah Sunlei
- Fariha Róisín
- Fatimah Ashghar
- George Abraham
- Hala Alyan
- hannah baer
- J. Wortham
- Jai Dulani
- Jessica Rosenberg
- Joy Harjo
- Kai Cheng Thom
- Kim Crutcher
- Kritee Kanko
- Lama Rod Owens
- Leah Manaema Avene
- Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
- Lis Goldschmidt
- Lubna Masarwa
- Lyla June
- M. Kaiser
- Mahmoud Darwish
- Mónica Gomery
- Morgan Bassichis
- Naima Penniman
- Naomi Ortiz
- Naomi Shihab Nye
- Nichola Torbett
- Norma Ryūkō Kaewlokū Wong
- Prentis Hemphill
- Rajiv Mohabir
- Rev. Michiko Bown-Kai
- Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart
- Safiya Randera
- Sam Sax
- Sharon Bridgforth
- Shelby Handler
- Smokii Sumac
- Sonya Renee Taylor
- Susan Raffo
- Tamiko Beyer
- Tricia Hersey
- Viva Ruiz
- Yaffa
- Yesenia Montilla
- Yumi Sakugawa
“Say It Like a Prayer is a deep well filled with soul-quenching and heart-expanding wisdom. It is that rare book destined to become an intimate, life-long companion, accompanying and fortifying us as we face the roiling seas of now. A gift of immense tenderness, beauty and generosity.”
– Naomi Klein, NYT bestselling author of End Times Fascism
“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
