DANEZ. SMITH

"& colin kaepernick is my president, who kneels on the air bent toward a branch, throwing apples down to the children & vets & rihanna is my president, walking out of global summits with wine glass in hand, our taxes returned in gold to dust our faces into coins & my mama is my president, her grace stunts on amazing, brown hands breaking brown bread over mouths of the hungry until there are none unfed & my grandma is my president & her cabinet is her cabinet cause she knows to trust what the pan knowshow the skillet wins the war" --from 'my president' Danez Smith is our President. A mighty anthem about the saving grace of friendship, Danez Smith's highly anticipated collection Homie is rooted in their search for joy and intimacy in a time where both are scarce. In poems of rare power and generosity, Smith acknowledges that in a country overrun by violence, xenophobia and disparity, and in a body defined by race, queerness, and diagnosis, it can be hard to survive, even harder to remember reasons for living. But then the phone lights up, or a shout comes up to the window, and family -- blood and chosen -- arrives with just the right food and some redemption. Part friendship diary, part bright elegy, part war cry, Homie is written for friends: for Danez's friends, for yours.

Homie

Lindsay

-"i'm going back to Minnesota where sadness makes sense"

at least in this land where the trees always bear green.

i know something that doesn’t die can’t be beautiful.

have you ever stood on a frozen lake, California?

the sun above you, the snow & stalled sea—a field of mirror

all demanding to be the sun, everything around you

is light & it’s gorgeous & if you stay too long it will kill you.

’s so sad, you know? you’re the only warm thing for miles

because we know how to control ourselves.

what advice do the drowned have for the burned?

what gossip is there between the hanged & the buried?

if i went to jail i’d live rent free but there is no way to avoid making white people richer

a prison is a plantation made of stone & steel

-"waiting on you to die so i can be myself"

i learn this best from the snake angulating

out of her pork-rind dress. i crawl out of myself

Homie quotes

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