*WINNER OF THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION 2018* *A Finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry 2017* *A Financial Times and Telegraph Book of the Year 2018* '[Smith's] poems are enriched to the point of volatility, but they pay out, often, in sudden joy' The New Yorker Award-winning poet Danez Smith is a ground-breaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. Don't Call Us Dead 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. Smith turns then to desire, mortality - the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood - and an HIV-positive diagnosis. 'Some of us are killed / in pieces,' Smith writes, 'some of us all at once.' Don't Call Us Dead is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes an America where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.

Meet Lasombra and V, a dynamic reporting duo with a penchant for being at the right place at the wrong time. Joining them is a dysfunctional news cast whose daily lives blur the line between on-air and off-air reality, all gripping with the emotional turmoil of living in a cold, heartless industry. Enter a deranged serial killer stalking the streets, wanting them all to be the biographers and chroniclers of madness. But behind the villain's mask lies a secret that will shatter the lives of friend and foe alike. Caught in a media station's dream of exclusive access to a wanted fugitive, the entire news cast must wrestle with the good of their careers vs. morality and saving human lives. But that is only half the story as they uncover a secret that if revealed will push society into complete Armageddon, forcing them to question who they actually are.

Let's just imagine you are getting ready for bed and you have a nightcap that proves to be one too many. You suddenly find yourself on the bathroom floor humming. The acoustics in the bathroom are so good that you can't help but sing. Makes for a fun night. Now imagine you had that nightcap at the club and never made it home. You sing along with the band and try not to get kicked. Another fun night. You just don't have clean teeth. Imagine how good that cool floor feels, and how nice the jazz trio sounds, "Oh, I know that one " so you sing along. That's how you will feel about the poetry in this book You will want to sing along. Bring your reading glasses and a nice snifter of your favorite spirits. Pour one for me, too.

"& colin kaepernick is my president, who kneels on the air
bent toward a branch, throwing apples down to the children & vets

& rihanna is my president, walking out of global summits
with wine glass in hand, our taxes returned in gold
to dust our faces into coins
& my mama is my president, her grace stunts
on amazing, brown hands breaking brown bread over
mouths of the hungry until there are none unfed
& my grandma is my president & her cabinet is her cabinet
cause she knows to trust what the pan knowshow the skillet wins the war" ―from 'my president'

Danez Smith is our President.

A mighty anthem about the saving grace of friendship, Danez Smith's highly anticipated collection Homie is rooted in their search for joy and intimacy in a time where both are scarce. 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.

Part friendship diary, part bright elegy, part war cry, Homie is written for friends: for Danez’s friends, for yours.

A journalist's account of the 1992 US senate race in Minnesota.

Black Queer Hoe is a refreshing, unapologetic intervention into ongoing conversations about the line between sexual freedom and sexual exploitation. Women's sexuality is often used as a weapon against them. In this powerful debut, Britteney Black Rose Kapri lends her unmistakable voice to fraught questions of identity, sexuality, reclamation, and power, in a world that refuses Black Queer women permission to define their own lives and boundaries. Britteney Black Rose Kapri is a Chicago performance poet and playwright. Currently she is an alumna turned Teaching Artist Fellow at Young Chicago Authors. Her work has been featured in Poetry Magazine, Button Poetry, Seven Scribes, and many other outlets, and anthologized in The BreakBeat Poets and The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic. She is a contributor to Black Nerd Problems, a Pink Door Retreat Fellow, and a 2015 Rona Jaffe Writers Award Recipient.