Homie

Starred review from November 18, 2019
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.

Starred review from January 1, 2020
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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)