Homie Poems

Danez Smith

Book - 2020

"Homie is Danez Smith's magnificent anthem about the saving grace of friendship. 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. Part friendship diary, part bright elegy, part war cry, Homie is the exuberant new... book written for Danez and for Danez's friends and for you and for yours."--

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Subjects
Genres
Spoken word poetry
Poetry
Published
Minneapolis, Minnesota : Graywolf Press 2020.
Language
English
Main Author
Danez Smith (author)
Physical Description
84 pages ; 23 cm
ISBN
9781644450109
  • My president
  • Niggas!
  • How many of us have them?
  • Jumped!
  • Saw a video of a gang of bees swarming a hornet who killed their bee-homie so I called to say I love you
  • Fall poem
  • Rose
  • I'm going back to Minnesota where sadness makes sense
  • The flower who bloomed thru the fence in grandmama's yard
  • In lieu of a poem, I'd like to say
  • Dogs!
  • Ode to gold teeth
  • On faggotness
  • Self-portrait as '90's R&B video
  • My bitch!
  • Sometimes I wish I felt the side effects
  • Say it with your whole black mouth
  • Shout out to my niggas in Mexico
  • White niggas
  • What was said at the bus stop
  • I didn't like you when I met you
  • For Andrew
  • 1989-2016
  • Depression food
  • Undetectable
  • All the good dick lives in Brooklyn Park
  • Broke n rice
  • C.R.E.A.M.
  • Old confession & new
  • Gay cancer
  • Happy hour
  • Waiting on you to die so I can be myself
  • The fat one with the switch
  • My poems
  • Trees!
  • My nig.
Review by Booklist Review

Following the Lambda Literary Award-winning insert Boy (2014) and National Book Award finalist Don't Call Us Dead (2017) comes Smith's much-awaited third book, a collection as dazzling as it is bighearted. Navigating through the dust of the dead, the enduring violence of white supremacy, and HIV-positive diagnoses, Smith emerges with a love-drunk ode to and celebration of Black culture, queerness, and the redemptive power of friendship. Here, revelry sidles up against immeasurable loss ( tonight the land hums / all our dead's beautiful bones, so let's have a party! ), 1990s nostalgia mingles with gospel, and language and imagination both rebuke and reinvent even the darkest corners of reality ( every child singing summer with a red sweet tongue is my president ). In a rallying cry toward the collection's end, Smith writes, my poems are fed up & getting violent. / . . . they say . . . make me a weapon!. Dynamic, breathtaking, and utterly brilliant, these poems are not only most magnificent weapons but also salves to share and songs to shout at the top of one's lungs. A transcendent collection sure to bolster Smith's status as a poetry icon.--Briana Shemroske Copyright 2020 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Smith (Don't Call Us Dead) presents an electrifying, unabashedly queer ode to friendship and community in their exuberant and mournful second collection. Smith alternates colloquial and lofty language, often within the same poem, and eschews most punctuation and grammatical strictures. In "ode to gold teeth," the poet writes of their grandfather, "gold gate of grandpa's holler/ midas touch his blue hum/ honeymetal perfuming prayers," later referring to him as the "OG of the gin sermon & front-porch pulpit." These poems are a celebration of black culture and experience, and a condemnation of white supremacy and its effect; in "dogs!," Smith excoriates racist dehumanization: "i too been called boy & expected/ to come, heel." In "sometimes i wish i felt the side effects," Smith explores conflicting feelings related to an HIV diagnosis--simultaneous devastation and relief ("it felt like i got it out the way, to finally know it"), acceptance, and shame ("i braved the stupidest ocean. a man. i waded in his stupid waters"). The collection's final poem, "acknowledgments," is a beautiful love poem to a best friend, one that is as heartfelt as it is quotable: "if luck calls your name, we split the pot/ & if you wither, surely i rot." Smith is a visionary polyglot with a fearless voice. (Jan.)

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