From Don’t Call Us Dead.

we did not build your boats (though we did leave a, trail of kin to guide us home).

Photo by Hieu Minh Nguyen. . i’ve left Earth in search of darker planets, a solar system revolving too near a black hole.

dear white america. how much time do you want for your progress? i tried to love you, but, you spent my brother’s funeral making plans for brunch, talking too loud next to his, bones. i can’t stand your ground. take your God back. because Martin preached. Danez is the author of Homie (Graywolf Press, 2020), Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press, 2017), winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award, and [insert] boy (YesYes Books, 2014), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry. I have left a patch of dirt in my place & many of you won’t know the difference; we are indeed the same color, one of us would eventually become the other.

I do not trust the God you have given us. .

The literary Internet’s most important stories, every day. take your God back. Washington, DC 20036, Split This Rock Poetry Festival and Program Updates Responding to COVID-19, Virtual Open Mic: Poems of Persistence, Solidarity, and Refuge, What Is It, Then, Between Us? i tried to love you, but you spent my brother’s funeral making plans for brunch, talking too loud next to his bones.

because Emmett whistled. because it’s taken my papa’s & my grandma’s time, my father’s, time, my mother’s time, my aunt’s time, my uncle’s time, my brother’s & my sister’s, time . i’m giving the stars their right names. i’ve left in search of a new God.

i can’t stand your ground. Added: Monday, June 15, 2015 / Danez Smith performs "dear white america" at the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness, March 27, 2014 at the National Geographic Grosvenor Auditorium in Washington, DC. i’ve left in search of a new God. because there are no amber alerts for amber-skinned girls! we did not build your prisons (though we did & we fill them too). & this life, this new story & history you cannot steal or sell or cast overboard or hang or beat or, drown or own or redline or shackle or silence or cheat or choke or cover up or jail, or shoot or jail or shoot or jail or shoot or ruin.

because black boys can al-, ways be too loud to live. Are the illustrations in children’s books making kids… dumber? Danez Smith is a Black, Queer, Poz writer & performer from St. Paul, MN. Combining elegiac lyricism with stern opposition, Smith’s poems confront the racial inequality of a ‘white america’ that runs on hypocrisy and denial. each night, i count my brothers.

because it’s taken my papa’s & my grandma’s time, my father’s time, my mother’s time, my aunt’s time, my uncle’s time, my brother’s & my sister’s time . This month, as we commemorate black history in the U.S., Danez Smith’s work offers the possibility of embodied understanding through the power of imagination.

because there, are no amber alerts for amber-skinned girls! each night, i count my brothers. because Huey P. spoke. though his songs are beautiful, his miracles are inconsistent.

i’ve left Earth, i am equal parts sick of your go back to Africa & i just don’t see race. my, grandmother’s hallelujah is only outdone by the fear she nurses every time the blood-. we did not ask to be part of your America (though are we not America? of colonial barter. i do not trust the God you have given us. i’ve left Earth & i am touching everything. . your master magic trick, America. because Huey P. spoke.

because Martin preached. joints brittle & dragging a ripped gown through Oakland?). . i reach for black folks & touch only air. Danez … i’ve left Earth, i am equal parts sick of your go back to Africa & i just don’t see, race. because black girls go missing without so much as a whisper of where?! September 5, 2017. dear white america i’ve left Earth in search of darker planets, a solar system revolving too near a black hole. you took one look at the river, plump with the body of boy after girl after sweet boi & ask why does it always have to be about race? I’ve left in search of a new God. because Jordan boomed. trapped on a canvas where they adorn us with thorns, / pin our mouths together, but our lips resist like a rose / shedding so as if to soar in / flight, I keep wondering why a black woman’s death alone can’t begin the revolution/, yes, in your breath / & in your hands that fend off, defend us // from the state that craves our death, seeks to snuff our breath, homelands: we shrink shrink—in time-lapse. dear white america: A Poem by Danez Smith "i've left Earth in search of darker planets" By Danez Smith. Danez's work has been featured widely including on Buzzfeed, The New York Times, PBS NewsHour, Best American Poetry, Poetry Magazine, the 2020 Pushcart Prize Anthology, on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. now he’s breath-. i’m sick of calling your recklessness the law. because you made it that way! Used with permission of Graywolf Press. we did not build your prisons (though we did & we fill, them too). i want the fate of Lazarus for Renisha, want Chucky, Bo, Meech, Trayvon, Sean & Jonylah risen three days after their entombing, their ghost re-gifted flesh & blood, their flesh & blood re-gifted their children. cause you put an asterisk on my sister’s gorgeous face! now he’s breathing, now he don’t. I’ve left a patch of dirt in my place and many of you won’t know the difference, giving my name, if it makes you feel better while you run your hands through its soiled scalp. & in the morning, when some do not survive to be counted, i count the holes they leave.

we did not ask to be part of your America (though are we not America?

Danez Smith: Dear White America, I’ve left Earth in search of darker planets, a solar system that revolves too near a black hole. because you made it that way! i do not trust the God you have given us. call her pretty (for a black girl)! Calling poets to a greater role in public life and fostering a national network of socially engaged poets.

my grandmother’s hallelujah is only outdone by the fear she nurses every time the blood-fat summer swallows another child who used to sing in the choir. They are the recipient of fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, the McKnight Foundation, Cave Canem, and the National Endowment for the Arts. you beg your telescopes to show you. Five Books about the Civilian Experience of War, 17 Crime Fiction Series That Use Real Historical Figures As Sleuths, How Elmore Leonard Really Wrote His Novels—According to His Characters, Eight Thrillers That Bring an Uncanny Slant to the Natural World, The Moral Morass of the Slasher: Revisiting The Strangely Slapstick Horror of, Chandler and the Fox: The Mid-Century Correspondence Between Raymond Chandler and James M. Fox.

i do not trust the God you have given us. call her pretty (for a black girl)! sorcery you claim not to practice, hand my cousin a pistol to do your work. white bread voodoo. because Jordan boomed. Dear White America by Danez Smith with lines from Amiri Baraka & James Baldwin I have left Earth in search of darker planets, a solar system that revolves too near a black hole. your master magic trick, America.

i tried, white people.

i tried, white people.

fat summer swallows another child who used to sing in the choir.