Perfidious Albion by Sam Byers £8.99 Add to cart.The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon £9.99 Add to cart.Magical Negro by Morgan Parker £10.99 Add to cart.There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker £9.99 Add to cart.Citizen : An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine £9.99 Add to cart.Homie by Danez Smith £10.99 Add to cart.Marrying the contemporary and the historical to a sense of the transcendent, haunted and holy, this is a luminous book by one of America’s essential poets. Accounts of near-death experiences intertwine with the modern-day fallout of a corporation’s illegal pollution of a major river and the surrounding land and, in a series of beautiful lyrical pieces, the poet’s everyday world and the growth and flourishing of her daughter are observed with a tender and witty eye. Survivors’ reports attest to the experiences of recent immigrants and refugees. The various connotations of the title, taken from a spiritual once sung on the Underground Railroad which smuggled slaves to safety in 19th-century America, resurface throughout the book, binding past and present together.Ĭollaged voices and documents recreate both the correspondence between slave owners and the letters sent home by African Americans enlisted in the US Civil War.

Smith’s signature voice – inquisitive, lyrical and wry – turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men and violence. In Wade in the Water, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION 2018

Tracy k smith wade in the water