Alive at the end of the world : poems

Alive at the end of the world Poems

Saeed Jones

Book - 2022

"Like his mentors, Patricia Smith and Rigoberto Gonzalez, Saeed writes poems that are lyrical, playful, musical, and political. It troubles expectations and asks the reader to challenge their assumptions about Blackness, sexuality, and socioeconomics. Saeed is responding here to white supremacy, heteronormativity, respectability politics, and the murders of Black people. In the service of equity and peace, Saeed elevates the matters that keep him up at night. If Prelude was a jettisoning of the oppressive structures Saeed experienced during his upbringing, ALIVE is a reminder that the work goes on, that freedom and equity are inextricably linked. In fact, a character from Prelude, known as Boy, carries through into ALIVE, which continu...es his work in Prelude with a maturity of perspective and more weariness. This is a work that examines the nuances of grief--the grief over lost family members and lost loves; the grief of white supremacy and the myth of safety from homophobia, anti-blackness, gun violence; the grief of covid"--

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Subjects
American poetry > 21st century.
Poetry.
Genres
Poetry
Published
Minneapolis : Coffee House Press 2022.
Language
English
Main Author
Saeed Jones (author)
Physical Description
ix, 81 pages ; 21 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references
ISBN
9781566896511
  • Foreword
  • Alive at the End of the World
  • Alive at the End of the World
  • A Memory
  • That's Not Snow, It's Ash
  • If You Had an Off Button, I'd Name You "Off"
  • A Song for the Status Quo
  • All I Gotta Do Is Stay Black and Die
  • It's 1975 and Paul Mooney Says "Nigger" a Hundred Times
  • Deleted Voice Message: Hey, Robyn-It's Me, Whitney
  • Grief #213
  • Saeed, or The Other One: I
  • Alive at the End of the World
  • Saeed, How Dare You Make Your Mother into a Prelude
  • Saeed Wonders If the Poem You Just Read Would've Been Better Served by a Different Title
  • Heritage
  • After the School Board Meeting
  • Black Ice
  • The Trial
  • Gravity
  • Aretha Franklin Hears an Echo While Singing "Save Me"
  • Diahann Carroll Takes a Bath at the Beverly Hills Hotel
  • Grief#913
  • Saeed, or the Other One: II
  • Alive at the End of the World
  • "Sorry as in Pathetic"
  • A Stranger
  • Okay, One More Story
  • Okay, One More Story
  • Date Night
  • The Essential American Worker
  • Against Progeny
  • A Difficult Love Song for Luther Vandross
  • Little Richard Listens to Pat Boone Sing "Tutti Frutti"
  • Grief #346
  • Saeed, or The Other One: III
  • Alive at the End of the World
  • Extinction
  • Everything Is Dying, Nothing Is Dead
  • A Spell to Banish Grief
  • The Dead Dozens
  • After Watching a Video of Cicely Tyson Singing a Hymn, I Realize I Wasn't a Good Grandson
  • Performing as Miss Calypso, Maya Angelou Dances Whenever She Forgets the Lyrics, which Billie Holiday, Seated in the Audience, Finds Annoying
  • At 84 Years Old, Toni Morrison Wonders If She's Depressed
  • All I Gotta Do Is Stay Black and Die (Apocalyptic Remix)
  • Grief #1
  • Saeed, or The Other One: IV
  • Notes at the End of the World
Review by Booklist Review

In his bristling second poetry collection, Jones focuses on simmering tensions in American society and returns to his relationship with his deceased mother and his identity as a gay Black man, themes he explored in his widely acclaimed memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives (2019). Jones' daring, self-aware approach to personal trauma includes an unconventional poem aligned horizontally on the page, titled "Saeed, How Dare You Make Your Mother into a Prelude," and another that lists potential titles, including "Saeed Wonders If He or His Mother Is the Protagonist." But it's the searing social critique that really sets this book apart. Addressing the epidemic of gun violence in this country, Jones begins with a dark assertion, "In America, a gathering of people / is called target practice or a funeral, / depending on who lives long enough." Another poem laments the loss of a cultural icon, "the night Whitney Houston died, the National Anthem / shot itself in the throat." Yet another personalizes the anthem, "the whip and clang of the stars and stripes / outside our classroom window made me / think of Black backs bloody, broken open." With brutal lyricism and biting insight, Jones is a crucial poet for this moment.

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

The potent latest from Jones (Prelude to Bruise) excoriates an American present that refuses to learn from its past or correct for a possibly disastrous future. A kaleidoscope of grief and anger mixes with the poet's wit, giving these timely poems a striking directness: "In America, a gathering of people/ is called target practice or a funeral,/ depending on who lives long enough/ to define the terms." The stakes rise with each poem. Channeling the voices of deceased Black celebrities like Aretha Franklin, Jones engages the reader in a frank conversation about Black life as entertainment value: "you said you wanted me to make/ you feel good or holy or respected/ or natural, woman, don't you know/ I am made of how I make you feel/ or don't." Ecological collapse also comes into play, as in the poem "Extinction," which puns on "pray," making the threat disarmingly personal: "Prey me long forgotten/ before one of us swallows// the last bite of the last/ good tomato in America." Balancing elegy with gallows humor, this penetrating collection shows Jones at his poetic best. (Sept.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Following up the gorgeously corrosive National Book Critics Circle finalist Prelude to a Bruise, Jones--also a Kirkus Prize winner for his memoir How We Fight for Our Lives --explores grief and commemoration, particularly in the Black community.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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