Danez Smith's 'Don't Call Us Dead' contains one of the most breathtaking poems you'll read all year
Midway through their poem, "summer, somewhere," Danez Smith offers a vision of utopia: "Paradise is a world where everything/ is sanctuary & nothing is a gun."
The poem, the opening of Smith's National Book Award-nominated collection Don't Call Us Dead, is a 25-page long elegy to the boys who were killed, in which the narrator envisions an afterlife in which these boys, vulnerable in life, have now found peace and power.
"Now, everywhere i am is/ the center of everything. I must/ be the lord of something. What was i before? a boy? a son?/ a warning? a myth? i whistled/ now i'm the god of whistling," writes Smith.
And yet, despite its empowered vision, Smith's poem 'summer somewhere' is a punch-to-the-gut for any modern reader, a deftly crafted ode that fluctuates from searing indictment ("history is what it is. it knows what it did") to mourning ("dear air where you used to be, dear empty Chucks/ by front door, dear whatever you are now, dear son") as it grapples with the very real question taking place here on Earth: How do we discuss and honor boys who were killed by police brutality?
The result is one the most of creative, breathtaking, and important poems you'll read this year.
This week on the MashReads Podcast we read and discuss Don't Call Us Dead and "Summer, Somewhere" by Danez Smith. Join us in the episode above.
Then, inspired by "Summer, Somewhere's" depiction of paradise, we discuss our favorite portrayals of the afterlife in literature including: Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders, The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, the Mediator series by Meg Cabot, the Abhorsen series by Garth Nix, and No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre.
Then, as always we close the show with recommendations:
You can see Peter's "U bum" sweatshirt here.
Aliza recommends watching the movie Scream this month for Halloween. "It is a meta treatise on slasher films... I would recommend that if you're uneasy but interested in scary movies, then check out Scream." Also, she is embarking on a quest to watch one horror movie each day in October. You can follow along on her 31-day quest here.
Peter recommends you watch the horror movie A Dark Song, a hidden gem on Netflix. "It's really quiet and it ratchets up the dread a little bit at a time, and it's really fun, in the way that horror movies are good. It's great and atmospheric."
MJ recommends all of the articles celebrating the rise of Cardi B, especially "Bloody Slippers: The Fairy-Tale Come-Up of Cardi B" by Lindsay Zoladz and "Cardi B, the Female Rapper Who Ousted Taylor Swift From the Top of the Charts." "Just shout out to Cardi B and her tremendous achievement. 'Bodak Yellow' is a bop, through and through." He also recommends "Is True Love Real, Y/N," an advice column by JP Brammer for Grindr's digital magazine Into. "I read this essay and I got Cheryl Strayed Tiny Beautiful Things level chills."
If you're looking for a longer book to sink your teeth in, be sure to check out My Absolute Darling by Gabriel Tallent, which is Mashable's current MashReads book club book. And if you're looking for even more book news, don't forget to follow MashReads on Facebook and Twitter.
Topics Books
