Don’t call us dead by Danez Smith

Synopsis

Finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry Winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection

"[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 groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power.Don't Call Us Deadopens 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 a diagnosis of HIV positive. "Some of us are killed / in pieces," Smith writes, "some of us all at once."Don't Call Us Deadis an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes America--"Dear White America"--where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.

Review

What do I think? ...

My honest answer is I don’t know. This book was a high recommendation in response to the craving of so many to broaden the awareness of black writings.

I get it, in some ways.

I can understand what is being said in the most part.

This review might seem disjointed but that’s because it is. My mind is still trying to make sense of what I have read and what the book trying to tell me.

The world right now seems confused to me, and this book reflects that.

I am determined to say no more than that.

This book is an eye opening perspective of someone who is trying to make sense of their feelings and what that means for their life in the world right now.

It has made me think. I genuinely believe that is it’s intention for anyone that chooses to pick this up.

I don’t know what I think and I can accept that, because there is, and never will be an easy answer to the questions this book asks of it’s readers. Why must there always be definitive answers? It‘s ok to not know sometimes. My mind will continue to try and find coherent thoughts and opinions, because that is who I am... I need them, but at the same time I feel quite content with the idea that there may never be any.

I needed to write down my thoughts and feelings about it in order to try and piece together some kind of conclusion, but the longer I think about what I have read and try to decipher it, the more questions it poses.

Is that a good thing? Who knows... I certainly don’t and that’s why this review is written as it is.

I had to write it.

You have to read it.

Make up your own mind. If you can.

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