A review by branson
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

4.0

Coates writes his messaging into such poetic, raw forms. He tells it in such a fundamental way that it feels as if I cannot help but bear witness to its truth. At the same time, I struggle to verbalize my own takeaways. Coates's message is both written right into the word, and burns at the edge of language. Maybe this is as poetry intends, though his story is written in prose.

His picture of racism in rooted in the way it affects the black body. He captures its terror and inescapability. He captures so much that attempts to hide in abstraction in concrete terms.

I hope to read Between the World and Me again. His words wedge in truths that simply sink in whether I have had the chance to process them or not.