“We turn to poetry in our greatest moments of joy and sorrow to help us tune in to our emotions and connect with others,” writes Johnston. In Praisesong for the People, poetry brings us together to celebrate the people across the state who make this land feel like home.

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Edited by Amanda Johnston, the 61st Texas Poet Laureate and first Black woman to receive this honor, this vibrant anthology collects the work of 70 emerging and established poets across the state. Commissioned to write original poems celebrating everyday people, the poets in Praisesong for the People: Poems from the Heart and Soul of Texas are as diverse as the landscapes they inhabit, and reflect the intersecting identities of Texas’s population across age, gender, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, disability, and immigrant communities. In these poems, their voices gather in a heartfelt chorus to praise the people in their communities who offer small kindnesses, asking nothing in return. 

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"No one knows better than the radiant, extravagantly gifted Amanda Johnston how positivism and praise lifts up our days. And could we ever use a little more of that! I’m very heartened by this gathering of grateful poems."

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— Naomi Shihab Nye, author of Grace Notes: Poems about Families

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Here is my praisesong to Amanda Johnston’s expansive vision and to this resonant collection of voices and their praises to the everyday people of this big, troubling, diverse, and dynamic state we call home.

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— Carrie Fountain, author of The Poem Forest