Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

Written by Danez Smith

Narrated by Danez Smith

Finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry

Winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection

Award-winning poet Danez Smith is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. Don't Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality-the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood-and a diagnosis of HIV positive. "Some of us are killed / in pieces," Smith writes, "some of us all at once." Don't Call Us Dead is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes America-"Dear White America"-where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Jan 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781684577378

Danez Smith

Danez Smith is the author of [INSERT] BOY (YesYes Books, 2014), winner of the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry and finalist for the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. His 2nd collection, Don't Call Us Dead, will be published by Graywolf Press in 2017. He is also the author of two chapbooks, hands on ya knees and black movie, winner of the Button Poetry Prize. His work has published and featured widely including in Poetry Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, Buzzfeed, Blavity, and Ploughshares.

Reviews for Don't Call Us Dead

[Shae · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Powerful! Listening to the author reading his own words...putting the emphasis where needed brought these peoms alive! There is joy but also so much pain.

[Ken · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Danez Smiths’ poetry always has me on the edge of my seat. Thank you for this beautiful masterpiece! Officially my favorite poet

[Jay B · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A perfect poetry collection, narrated beautifully by the poet himself.

[Quasheba lI · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The imagery the author creates was powerful and I like their use of sound effects as part of their narration. Some parts of the book was hard to decipher who the authors intended audience was, i.e. for white audience members or those who were Black and Queer. The author does a great job for reimagining Black futures.

[Robyn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An amazingly well written, and well read poetry collection that brings thoughtful awareness to the problems or inequality in American society and beyond. It is emotional and gives the reader / listener a way to understand the truth and emotion that lives in the realities of racism, hate crimes, and LGBTQ+ inequality. All while being well crafted and so horrifically real.