{"title":"Spoken Word Poetry","description":"\u003cp\u003eThere is no way for us to capture the modern Spoken Word movement in a collection. \u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eWhile all poetry is suited to be read aloud, Spoken Word poetry leans on the rhythmic pulse of the speaker. Performances and recordings are often layered accompanying music, blurring the lines between spoken poetry and the rhythms of hip-hop. As a form or method of performance, Spoken Word poetry emerge from other poetry movements, bringing along a wide open audience. \u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"dont-call-us-dead-poems","title":"Don't Call Us Dead: Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFinalist for the National Book Award for Poetry\u003cbr\u003eWinner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"[Smith's] poems are enriched to the point of volatility, but they pay out, often, in sudden joy.\"--\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe New Yorker \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAward-winning poet Danez Smith is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. \u003ci\u003eDon't Call Us Dead\u003c\/i\u003e opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. 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Rooted in the loss of one of Smith's close friends, this book comes out of the search for joy and intimacy within a nation where both can seem scarce and getting scarcer. In poems of rare power and generosity, Smith acknowledges that in a country overrun by violence, xenophobia, and disparity, and in a body defined by race, queerness, and diagnosis, it can be hard to survive, even harder to remember reasons for living. But then the phone lights up, or a shout comes up to the window, and family--blood and chosen--arrives with just the right food and some redemption. 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How can one's writing be safe when their life is constantly in danger? In their debut poetry collection [insert] boy, Smith calls for a world where black boys and men are worshipped instead of feared, a world in which they live long enough to \"feel the settling of joints, the experience of bones\" to \"die ninety \u0026amp; beautiful \/ \u0026amp; the causes more normal.\" In [insert] boy, Smith writes intimately about their complex relationship to multiple forms of violence. Smith discusses domestic abuse in their family, the physical and emotional effects of rape, and being the target of racist and homophobic language. All of these experiences are based on their interactions with other men. They also includes a series of poems about their many attempts at healing, a constant process which unfolds throughout the book. The body is present on almost every page-particularly the mouth, knees, and hands. These three body parts often appear together in the same poem. 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This is a book of awakening out of violence, guilt, shame, and critical pessimism to wonder and imagine how we can strive toward a new existence in a world that seems to be dissolving into desolate futures. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSmith brings a startling urgency to these poems, their questions demanding a new language, a deep self-scrutiny, and virtuosic textual shapes. A series of ars poetica gives way to \"anti poetica\" and \"ars america\" to implicate poetry's collusions with unchecked capitalism. A photographic collage accrues across a sequence to make clear the consequences of America's acceptance of mass shootings. A brilliant long poem--part map, part annotation, part visual argument--offers the history of Saint Paul's vibrant Rondo neighborhood before and after officials decided to run an interstate directly through it. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eBluff \u003c\/i\u003eis a kind of manifesto about artistic resilience, even when time and will can seem fleeting, when the places we most love--those given and made--are burning. 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The result is a profound testament to the necessity of poetry--all the careful witness, embodied experience, and bristling pleasure that it bestows--and of Smith's necessary voice. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eLyrical and sly, meditative and volcanic, \u003ci\u003eThe Intentions of Thunder \u003c\/i\u003estunningly explores the fullness of living. The inimitable poetry of Patricia Smith radiates in \u003ci\u003eThe Intentions of Thunder\u003c\/i\u003e--reaffirming Smith's place as one of the indispensable poets of our time.","brand":"Patricia Smith","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43797493612586,"sku":"9781668055724","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/intentions-of-thunder-new-and-selected-poems-5056438.jpg?v=1762250591"},{"product_id":"s-o-s-poems-1961-2013","title":"S O S: Poems 1961-2013","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOne of the \u003cem\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/em\u003e's 100 Notable Books\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWITH AN APPENDIX OF NEVER-BEFORE-PUBLISHED WORK\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFusing the personal and the political in high-voltage verse, Amiri Baraka was one of the preeminent literary innovators of the past century. 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From August 23, 2005, the day Tropical Depression Twelve developed, through August 28 when it became a Category Five storm with its \"scarlet glare fixed on the trembling crescent,\" to the heartbreaking aftermath, these poems evoke the horror that unfolded in New Orleans as America watched it on television.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAssuming the voices of flailing politicians, the dying, their survivors, and the voice of the hurricane itself, Smith follows the woefully inadequate relief effort and stands witness to families held captive on rooftops and in the Superdome. She gives voice to the thirty-four nursing home residents who drowned in St. Bernard Parish and recalls the day after their deaths when George W. Bush accompanied country singer Mark Willis on guitar: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe cowboy grins through the terrible din, \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAnd in the Ninth, a choking woman wails\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLook like this country done left us for dead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn unforgettable reminder that poetry can still be \"news that stays news,\" \u003ci\u003eBlood Dazzler \u003c\/i\u003eis a necessary step toward national healing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePatricia Smith \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of four previous collections of poetry, including \u003ci\u003eTeahouse of the Almighty\u003c\/i\u003e, winner of the Hurston\/Wright Legacy Award and the Paterson Poetry Prize. A record-setting, national poetry slam champion, she was featured in the film \u003ci\u003eSlamnation\u003c\/i\u003e, on the HBO series \u003ci\u003eDef Poetry Jam\u003c\/i\u003e, and is a frequent contributor to \u003ci\u003eHarriet\u003c\/i\u003e, the Poetry Foundation's blog. 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Smith's searing stanzas and revelatory language imbue the subjects of the photos with dynamism and revived urgency while she explores how her own past of triumphs and losses is linked inextricably to their long-ago lives: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWe ache for fiction etched in black and white. Our eyes never touch. These tragic grays and bustles, mourners' \u003cbr\u003e hats plopped high upon our tamed but tangled crowns, strain to disguise what yearning does with us.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e The poet's unrivaled dexterity with dramatic monologue and poetic form reanimates these countenances, staring back from such yesterdays, and the stories they may have told. 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Williams explores what social media may only hint at--times and realities have changed; there is a connect and a disconnect. We are wirelessly connected to a past and path to which we are chained. Saul Williams stops and frisks the moment, makes it empty its pockets, and chronicles what's inside. Here is an extraordinary book that will find its place in the hands and minds of a new generation.","brand":"Saul Williams","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44027904688170,"sku":"9781476779324","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/us-a-6054139.jpg?v=1770091938"},{"product_id":"she-original","title":"She (Original)","description":"Hailed as \"a dreadlocked dervish of words...the Bob Marley of American poets\" \u003ci\u003e(Esquire), \u003c\/i\u003e Saul Williams is a gifted young poet who is opening up this literary art form to a new generation of readers. Like his writing -- a fearless mix of connecting rhythms and vibrant images -- Saul Williams is unstoppable. He received raves for his performance as an imprisoned street poet in the Trimark Pictures release \u003ci\u003eSlam, \u003c\/i\u003e winner of the Camera d'Or at Cannes and the Grand Jury prize at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. The consummate spoken-word performance artist, Williams has also been signed by producer Rick Rubin to record a CD of his poetry. \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eShe\u003c\/i\u003e is a fascinating and unique collection of interconnected poems by this multi-talented star -- and marks the beginning of an incredible and totally original artistic career.","brand":"Saul Williams","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44027904753706,"sku":"9780671039776","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/she-original-4191146.jpg?v=1770091937"},{"product_id":"propa-propaganda","title":"Propa Propaganda","description":"Propa Propaganda was Benjamin Zephaniah's second collection from Bloodaxe. First published in 1996, it includes some of his classic poems, such as 'I Have a Scheme', 'The Death of Joy Gardner', 'White Comedy' and 'The Angry Black Poet'. Best known for his performance poetry with a political edge for adults - and his poetry with attitude for children - he was the first person to record with the Wailers after the death of Bob Marley, in a musical tribute to Nelson Mandela, which Mandela heard while in prison on Robben Island. He has published three other poetry books with Bloodaxe, City Psalms, Too Black Too Strong and To Do Wid Me (a DVD-book including a film portrait by Pamela Robertson-Pearce). His autobiography, The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah, was published by Scribner in 2018.","brand":"Benjamin Zephaniah","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44027906916394,"sku":"9781852243722","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/propa-propaganda-7980279.jpg?v=1770091936"},{"product_id":"too-black-too-strong","title":"Too Black, Too Strong","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eToo Black, Too Strong\u003c\/em\u003e is Benjamin Zephaniah's third collection from Bloodaxe. It addresses the struggles of black Britain more forcefully than all his previous books. With poems like 'Chant of a Homesick Nigga' and 'Kill Them Before Ramadan', he showed he was a poet who wouldn't stay silent, who didn't pull any punches, writing out of a sense of urgency and a commitment to social justice. He opened this hard-hitting and blackly funny book of poems with an outspoken comment on where he came from, setting his poetry against the political landscape of Britain. The book includes poems written while he was working with Michael Mansfield QC and other Tooks barristers on the Stephen Lawrence case.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBest known for his performance poetry with a political edge for adults - and his poetry with attitude for children - Zephaniah had his own rap\/reggae band. He produced numerous recordings, including \u003cem\u003eDub Ranting\u003c\/em\u003e (1982), \u003cem\u003eRasta\u003c\/em\u003e (1983), \u003cem\u003eUs and Dem\u003c\/em\u003e (1990), \u003cem\u003eBack to Roots\u003c\/em\u003e (1995), \u003cem\u003eBelly of de Beast\u003c\/em\u003e (1996) and \u003cem\u003eNaked\u003c\/em\u003e (2004). He was the first person to record with the Wailers after the death of Bob Marley, in a musical tribute to Nelson Mandela, which Mandela heard while in prison on Robben Island. Their later meetings led to Zephaniah working with children in South African townships and hosting the President's Two Nations Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1996.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHis first book of poems, \u003cem\u003ePen Rhythm\u003c\/em\u003e, was produced in 1980 by a small East London publishing cooperative, Page One Books. His second collection, \u003cem\u003eThe Dread Affair\u003c\/em\u003e, was published by Hutchinson's short-lived Arena imprint in 1985. He published three collections with Bloodaxe, \u003cem\u003eCity Psalms\u003c\/em\u003e (1992), \u003cem\u003ePropa Propaganda\u003c\/em\u003e (1996) and \u003cem\u003eToo Black Too Strong\u003c\/em\u003e (2001). \u003cem\u003eTo Do Wid Me\u003c\/em\u003e, filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce (Bloodaxe Books, 2013), includes a full-length feature film on DVD with all the poems performed in the film - taken from all three of his collections - included in the book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Benjamin Zephaniah","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44027906981930,"sku":"9781852245542","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/too-black-too-strong-6033230.jpg?v=1770091935"},{"product_id":"city-psalms","title":"City Psalms","description":"City Psalms was Benjamin Zephaniah's first collection from Bloodaxe back in 1992. It includes some of his best-known poems, including 'Dis Poetry', 'Money' and 'Us and Dem'. Best known for his performance poetry with a political edge for adults - and his poetry with attitude for children - Zephaniah has his own rap\/reggae band. He has produced numerous recordings, including Dub Ranting (1982), Rasta (1983), Us and Dem (1990), Back to Roots (1995), Belly of de Beast (1996) and Naked (2004). He was the first person to record with the Wailers after the death of Bob Marley, in a musical tribute to Nelson Mandela, which Mandela heard while in prison on Robben Island. Their later meetings led to Zephaniah working with children in South African townships and hosting the President's Two Nations Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1996. His first book of poems, Pen Rhythm, was produced in 1980 by a small East London publishing cooperative, Page One Books. His second collection, The Dread Affair, was published by Hutchinson's short-lived Arena imprint in 1985. He has since published three collections with Bloodaxe, City Psalms (1992), Propa Propaganda (1996) and Too Black Too Strong (2001), the latter including poems written while working with Michael Mansfield QC and other Tooks barristers on the Stephen Lawrence case. To Do Wid Me, filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce (Bloodaxe Books, 2013), includes a full-length feature film on DVD with all the poems performed on the film included in the book.","brand":"Benjamin Zephaniah","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44027907047466,"sku":"9781852242305","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/city-psalms-1198265.jpg?v=1770091933"},{"product_id":"collected-poems-6","title":"The Collected Poems","description":"\u003cb\u003eWinner Gish Prize for Lifetime Achievement \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA representative collection of the life work of the much-honored poet and a founder of the Black Arts movement, spanning the 4 decades of her literary career. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eGathering highlights from all of Sonia Sanchez's poetry, this compilation is sure to inspire love and community engagement among her legions of fans. Beginning with her earliest work, including poems from her first volume, \u003ci\u003eHomecoming\u003c\/i\u003e (1969), through to 2019, the poet has collected her favorite work in all forms of verse, from Haiku to excerpts from book-length narratives. Her lifelong dedication to the causes of Black liberation, social equality, and women's rights is evident throughout, as is her special attention to youth in poems addressed to children and young adults. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs Maya Angelou so aptly put it: \"Sonia Sanchez is a lion in literature's forest. When she writes she roars, and when she sleeps other creatures walk gingerly.\"","brand":"Sonia Sanchez","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44027907113002,"sku":"9780807007358","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/collected-poems-2171523.jpg?v=1770091933"},{"product_id":"wounded-in-the-house-of-a-friend-revised","title":"Wounded in the House of a Friend (Revised)","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn exploration of the pain, self-doubt, and anger that emerge in women's lives, from a leading writer of the Black Arts Movement and \u003c\/b\u003ethe American Poetry Society's 2018 Wallace Stevens Award-winner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRenowned African-American poet Sonia Sanchez writes of an unfaithful life partner, a brutal rape, the murder of a woman by her granddaughter, the ravages of drugs. Sanchez transforms the unspoken and sometimes violent betrayals of our lives into a liberating vision of connection in emotional redemption, compassion, and self-fulfillment.","brand":"Sonia Sanchez","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44027907276842,"sku":"9780807068274","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/wounded-in-the-house-of-a-friend-revised-8906591.jpg?v=1770091933"},{"product_id":"collected-poems-of-bob-kaufman","title":"The Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2020 AMERICAN BOOK AWARD WINNER\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The \u003cem\u003eCollected Poems of Bob Kaufman\u003c\/em\u003e is the most comprehensive selection of his verse to date, a volume that contains a lot of previously uncollected work. ... this book makes a case for him as a perceptive and eccentric American original, a man who seems to have fallen out of the sky like a meteor.\"--\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The body of work is small but voluminous in intensity, spirit and soul, with a lineage that runs from Charles Baudelaire to Charles Mingus. Kaufman--with his commitment to the art, his surreal eye on the urban experience and beyond it, and his jazz timing--brings San Francisco to life.\"--\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Twentieth-century American poetry cannot be fully comprehended without Bob Kaufman. City Lights and the editors do a grand service to literature by publishing Kaufman's poetry in one collection. ... This is a necessary gift for poets and poetry readers.\"--\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eBooklist\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"He was an original voice. No one else talked like him. No one else wrote poetry like him.\"--\u003cstrong\u003eLawrence Ferlinghetti\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBob Kaufman (1925-1986) was one of the most important--and most original--poets of the twentieth century. He is among the inaugurators of what today is characterized as the Afro-Surreal, uniting the surrealist practice of automatic writing with the jazz concept of spontaneous composition. He seldom wrote his poems down and often discarded those he did, leaving them to be rescued by others. He was also a legendary figure of the Beat Generation, known as much for hopping on tables to declaim his poetry as for maintaining a monastic silence for months or even years at a time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKaufman produced just three broadsides and three books in his lifetime. In 1967, \u003cem\u003eGolden Sardine\u003c\/em\u003e was published by City Lights in its famed Pocket Poets Series, and became an instant cult classic. \u003cem\u003eCollected Poems\u003c\/em\u003e is a landmark poetic achievement, bringing together all of Kaufman's known surviving poems, including an extensive section of previously uncollected work, in a long overdue return to City Lights Books.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eCollected Poems of Bob Kaufman\u003c\/em\u003e: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Bob Kaufman volcanically en-veined the Beats as a mirage enveloped Surrealist; not as a formal poet, but one, like Rimbaud, who embodied butane. Following the scent of his butane on one anonymous North Beach afternoon led Philip Lamantia to audibly utter to me that Bob Kaufman as per incandescent singularity is 'our poet.'\"--\u003cstrong\u003eWill Alexander\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eCompression \u0026amp; Purity\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Bob Kaufman is one of our most vulnerable, mysterious, and beautiful poets, a nomadic maudit, surrealist saint of the streets, votary of silence, the consummate Outrider with trickster imagination and visionary power.\"--\u003cstrong\u003eAnne Waldman\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eTrickster Feminism\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Uplifting the voice of this under-sung literary master to future's light is the mission of the \u003cem\u003eCollected Poems of Bob Kaufman\u003c\/em\u003e. This poet's poet on the cliff edge of no ledge is still continuing to foster new surrealizations. Read this bebopian wordsmith, his pen turned saxophone and ink notes that are black tears.\"--\u003cstrong\u003eKamau Daáood\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eThe Language of Saxophones\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"To call these poems 'surreal' seems, now, to muffle Kaufman's prophetic genius. He saw us, our images in pools of blood, milk, and saxophone spittle. Maybe it was ever our shivering made the ripples that distorted the reflections.\"--\u003cstrong\u003eDouglas Kearney\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eBuck Studies\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003cem\u003eCollected Poems of Bob Kaufman\u003c\/em\u003e should finally liberate the kaleidoscopic surrealism of this San Franciscan, and in many respects, secular Franciscan, poet from the shadows of Allen Ginsberg and the other Beats. ... \u003cem\u003eCollected Poems\u003c\/em\u003e is a memoriam of unmitigated joy and abysmal despair.\"--\u003cstrong\u003eTyrone Williams\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eAs iZ\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bob Kaufman","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44027915829290,"sku":"9780872867697","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/collected-poems-of-bob-kaufman-3329831.jpg?v=1770091933"},{"product_id":"solitudes-crowded-with-loneliness","title":"Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness","description":"Kaufman promotes a spontaneous, prophetic verse, mixing street talk and jazz with vision. \u003cem\u003eSolitudes Crowded with Loneliness\u003c\/em\u003e contains odes to Charles Mingus, Hart Crane, Ray Charles, and Albert Camus as well as love lyrics, political rants, \"Prison Poems,\" and the prose meditation \"Second April.\"","brand":"Bob Kaufman","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44027915894826,"sku":"9780811200769","price":12.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/solitudes-crowded-with-loneliness-4357575.jpg?v=1770091933"},{"product_id":"chrome-valley-poems","title":"Chrome Valley: Poems","description":"Boldly lyrical and fiercely honest, Mahogany L. Browne's \u003cem\u003eChrome Valley\u003c\/em\u003e offers an intricate portrait of Black womanhood in America. \"We praise their names \/ \u0026amp; the hands that write \/ Praise the mouth that speaks,\" she writes in tribute to those who came before her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Browne captures a quintessential girlhood through the pleasures and pangs of young love: the thrill of skating hip to hip at the roller rink, the heat of holding hands in the dark, and, sometimes, the sting of a palm across the cheek. Friendship, too, comes with its own complex yearnings: \"you ain't had freedom \/ 'til you climb on bus 62 \/ \u0026amp; head to the closest mall \/ for a good seat at the girl fight.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Reflections of Browne's mother, Redbone, bolster the collection with moments of unwavering strength: \"give me my mother's bone structure \/ \u0026amp; her gap tooth slaughter \/ give me her spine--Redbone got a spine for the world.\" Other moments explore the inherent anxieties shared among Black mothers, rhythmically intoning names like the tolling of a church bell: \"Because Kadiatou Diallo \/ Because Sybrina Fulton \/ Because Valeria Bell \/ Because Mamie Till.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The characters in \u003cem\u003eChrome Valley\u003c\/em\u003e grapple with the legacies of inherited trauma but also revel in the beauty of the undaunted self-determination passed down from Black woman to Black woman. Transcendent and grounded, funny and furious, \u003cem\u003eChrome Valley\u003c\/em\u003e brings depth to a movement, solidifying Mahogany L. Browne as one of the most significant poetic voices of our time.","brand":"Mahogany L Browne","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44037797773354,"sku":"9781324095637","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/chrome-valley-poems-6591755.jpg?v=1770178698"},{"product_id":"i-remember-death-by-its-proximity-to-what-i-love","title":"I Remember Death by Its Proximity to What I Love","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe long form poem is tethered in folklore and personal narrative, detailing the impact of the destructive mass incarceration system.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mahogany L Browne","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44037797838890,"sku":"9781642595703","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/i-remember-death-by-its-proximity-to-what-i-love-6613750.jpg?v=1770178698"}],"url":"https:\/\/thepoetryshop.com\/collections\/spoken-word.oembed?page=2","provider":"The Poetry Shop LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}