Against Heaven: Poems

By Kemi Alabi

Winner of the Academy of American Poets First Book Award, selected by Claudia Rankine.

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Apr 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781644451724

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mine: There is a balm in Gilead. Sticky resin turned perfume, and we’ve mucked a grove’s worth.

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AGAINST HEAVEN

Winner of the 2021 Academy of American Poets First Book Award

Selected by Claudia Rankine

Sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, the First Book Award

is given annually to the winner of an open competition among

American poets who have not yet published a book of poems.

AGAINST HEAVEN

poems

KEMI ALABI

Graywolf Press

Copyright © 2022 by Kemi Alabi

The author and Graywolf Press have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify Graywolf Press at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

This publication is made possible, in part, by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Significant support has also been provided by the McKnight Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the Amazon Literary Partnership, and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. To these organizations and individuals we offer our heartfelt thanks.

Published by Graywolf Press

250 Third Avenue North, Suite 600

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401

All rights reserved.

www.graywolfpress.org

Published in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-64445-082-6

Ebook ISBN 978-1-64445-172-4

2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1

First Graywolf Printing, 2022

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021940580

Cover design: Kapo Ng

Cover art: Llanor Alleyne, Seraphina, collage on paper

CONTENTS

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 Learns the Rules

Sunday