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A review by jstroem
Don't Call Us Dead: Poems by Danez Smith
5.0
i don't doubt that
anything is possible in a place
where you can burn a body
with less outrage than a flag
I absolutely adored Smith's poetry. There's a feeling of a collective voice in the poems, even though some of them are overtly personal, and I think that the interwovenness of multiple voices and personal experiences makes this collection as strong as it is. It tells the unfiltered story of the Black American experience and the political tone is not drowned in the poetic language, instead they feed off each other.
If we want to keep the belief that Black lives matter and the importance of that statement at the front of our minds in 2021, we need do assess what we read and who we read. You won't understand if you don't listen, so start there. Or rather, start here.
anything is possible in a place
where you can burn a body
with less outrage than a flag
I absolutely adored Smith's poetry. There's a feeling of a collective voice in the poems, even though some of them are overtly personal, and I think that the interwovenness of multiple voices and personal experiences makes this collection as strong as it is. It tells the unfiltered story of the Black American experience and the political tone is not drowned in the poetic language, instead they feed off each other.
If we want to keep the belief that Black lives matter and the importance of that statement at the front of our minds in 2021, we need do assess what we read and who we read. You won't understand if you don't listen, so start there. Or rather, start here.