They Don't Love You Like I Love You

A defining feature of Postcolonial Love Poem (2020), the collection from which “They Don’t Love You Like I Love You” is taken, is a close attention to music and language. According to Diaz, music and rhythm are important to her as they represent the oral literature of Native American peoples as well as the rock and pop music which were part of her childhood landscape. Additionally, music and songs represent a shared heritage which spills into her poems, thus resembling the continuing cycle of storytelling and song making. In an interview with xx, she says, “I suppose all of my poems are samples of other songs, stories, and poems, other things already sung, spoken, dreamed, or imagined.”

The references to the American indie rock band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and pop star Beyoncé in the poem showcase the literary imagination of the poet at work, where snatches of heard songs weave in seamlessly through her own words. Diaz’s poem is akin to a lived experience, in which one’s thoughts coexist with surrounding music. According to Diaz, she “grew up with music always climbing out open windows and doors on my rez, blooming from my mom’s radio or this large Frankensteined stereo we had, made of all different pieces.