Owed

Starred review from September 21, 2020
The powerful second book from Bennett (The Sobbing School) intertwines the author’s multifaceted professions as poet, performer, and professor through powerful, crisp poems that celebrate the complexity, joy, and heartbreak of the Black experience in America. “I’m pretty good/ at not loving/ anything enough/ to fear its ruin./ The cruel speed/ of our guaranteed/ obsolescence suits/ me,” he writes in “Plural.” Packed with sounds that echo the rhythms and narrative form of performance poetry, the collection is divided into three sections, each containing a series of Bennett’s version of the ode, which is reclaimed as “owed.” This idea is echoed in his four poems titled “Reparation.” Bubbling under his Whitmanesque breadth and awe at the world around him is the danger of growing up Black in America: “we grew tired trying not to die.” In “The Book of Mycah,” dense blocks of text flesh out the frenetic pace and energy of the Brooklyn neighborhood where Mycah Dudley, “Son of Flatbush & roti & dollar vans bolting down the avenue after six,” was killed by police. With their joy, pain, and fierce descriptions of Black life in America, Bennett’s poems are more necessary than ever.

Starred review from September 1, 2020

Racism and particularly the danger faced by Black men in America run like a current through this new collection from National Poetry series winner Bennett (The Sobbing School), whose subjects range from police shootings to childhood friendships to his father's integrating his Alabama high school. As he writes in an "American Abecedarian," "B is for blacks belting blues before burial, the blood/ they let to give the flag its glimmer." The book's tripartite structure is reflected in the titles that predominate in each section, which include "Owed to," "Reparations," and "Token," phrases that have obvious and poignant resonance in the Black community. Occasionally, Bennett stretches his similes or overwrites, when less detail would have made the work more powerful. In the end, however, not only are these poems eloquent but also lyrical, intelligent, and, occasionally, funny. Most reflect upon and communicate the pain, joy, and intensity of the current Black experience. As the author writes in the final poem, "The Next Black American Anthem," "Twelve/ & a half minutes// of unchecked, bass-laden/ braggadocio. An owed// to the unwanted." VERDICT In a time when many confront and protest the racism prevalent in our society, Bennett's new book is vital. Recommended for all collections.--Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., Bloomington, IN

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 4, 2020
From the opening poem, ""Token Sings the Blues,"" onward, the latest book by Dartmouth professor Bennett invites us to see through the eyes of someone othered, isolated, and alone in rooms full of people and everyday situations. The perspective of people who "contain multitudes & are yet / contained everywhere," which opens this collection, is one that is important to share and that will resonate with many readers. What follows that stunning opening are astonishing poems that explore the past, childhood, family relationships, identity, and memory among many other themes, all expertly rendered through a mixture of forms. Bennett uses wordplay throughout--his odes are "owed"; a barber has the ability to "reclaim fade / so I now hear the word & imagine / only abundance"--in an effective, never precious way. He has a gift for building and setting vivid scenes and complex stories within the small frames of his stanzas. Bennett will appeal to fans of Gregory Pardlo.

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