Newburyport Public Library

Against heaven, poems, Kemi Alabi

eng

no index present

poetry

Against heaven

1246142577

Kemi Alabi

poems

Kemi Alabi's transcendent debut reimagines the poetic and cultural traditions from which it is born, troubling the waters of some of our country's central and ordained fictions--those mythic politics of respectability, resilience, and redemption. Instead of turning to a salvation that has been forced upon them, Alabi turns to the body and the earth as sites of paradise defined by the pleasure and possibility of Black, queer fugitivity. Through tender love poems, righteous prayers, and vital provocations, we see the colonizers we carry within ourselves being laid to rest. Against Heaven is a praise song made for the flames of a burning empire--a freedom dream that shapeshifts into boundless multiplicities for the wounds made in the name of White supremacy and its gods. Alabi has written an astonishing collection of magnificent range, commanding the full spectrum of the Black, queer spirit's capacity for magic, love, and ferocity in service of healing--the highest power there is

How to fornicate -- Against heaven -- We would hex the president but -- Love poem -1: Chicago (CST) to Bangalore (GMT+5:30) -- Black as: -- Voice clear as -- The lion Tamer's daughter learners the rules -- Sunday closet -- A financial planner asks about my goals, or golden shovel with cardi B's "money" -- Mr. Hotep says #Blacklivematter and he'd kill a dyke -- Love letter from Pampeii -- The lion tamer's daughter vs. the whip -- No more white girls, or what I learned from father -- 44 questions to ask while bingeing -- Catatonia mercy/or what i learned from mother -- The virus -- against heaven -- Excerpt from the book of oceans -- Theory of plate tectonics -- Prayer in child's pose -- The oldest song -- After we ruin my love's heart, the God of Annihilation prays back to me -- The lonely dream in fevers -- The lion tamer's daughter vs. full moon in leo -- Soft beautiful just for me relaxer, no-lye conditioning creme, children's regular -- At HM, when another black girl asks if I work here -- Undelivered message to the sky: November 9, 2016 -- Depression proposes to me again -- Against heaven -- The lion Tamer's daughter vs. the ledge -- You must believe in spring -- Eulogy for the voice in my head -- The lonely sleep through winter -- Dendrochronology of this want -- Against heaven -- Polyamory defense #324 -- Goodbye letter to my lover's wife -- A wedding, or what we unlearned from Descartes -- Free fucked -- Planet fka the lion tamer's daughter, mapped -- Against heaven