Eschewing series and performative typography, Douglas Kearney's Sho aims to hit crooked licks with straight-seeming sticks. Navigating the complex penetrability of language, these poems are sonic in their espousal of Black vernacular traditions, while examining histories, pop culture, myth, and folklore. Both dazzling and devastating, Sho is a genius work of literary precision, wordplay, farce, and critical irony. In his "stove-like imagination,"...
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PoetryThe 2021 National Book Award finalists were announced last week. This prestigious annual literary award includes five different categories—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature—with five finalists for each. Read on for the twenty-five books that made the cut.