Don't Call Us Dead

August 1, 2017

In this remarkable second collection from Kate Tufts/Lambda Award winner Smith, the content as well as the writing is transcendent. A core poem, "dear white america," already viewed in a YouTube reading by over 300,000 people, opens with the observation, "i've left Earth in search of darker planets," and every line that follows is a stab-in-the-heart summation of the consequences of racism, delivered in taut, pearlescent prose. Claiming that "my grandmother's hallelujah is only outdone by the fear she nurses every time the blood-fat summer swallows another child," Smith demands, "take your God back," adding "I am equal parts sick of your go back to Africa & I just don't see race." In the end, the poet looks for a place where there's a "history you cannot steal or sell or cast overboard...or redline or shackle or silence." That longing also surfaces in the opening poem, which evokes a sort of sunlit afterlife where black males killed violently gather freely and "jump// in the air and hang there," unburdened by fear. These two poems alone are worth the price of admission, but the whole collection measures up. VERDICT Highly recommended.

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