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Columbus is the setting for Abdurraqib's first book, a poetry collection called The Crown Ain't Worth Much (Button Poetry, July 2016).[4] Publishers Weekly's review noted, "When Willis-Abdurraqib meditates on the dangers of being young and black in America, the power of his poetry is undeniable".[5] The Indiana Review called the collection "expansive and rich...compassionate, elegiac."[6] Fusion called his "poetry a crash course in emotional honesty."[7] Writing of the collection's titular poem, The Huffington Post said Abdurraqib's "chilling take on black death is heartbreakingly true."[8]
How Can Black People Write About Flowers at a Time Like Thisdear reader, with our heels digging into the good mud at a swamp’s edge, you might tell me something about the dandelion & how it is not a flower itself but a plant made up of several small flowers at its crown & lord knows I have been called by what I look like more than I have been called by what I actually am & I wish to return the favor for the purpose of this exercise. which, too, is an attempt at fashioning something pretty out of seeds refusing to make anything worthwhile of their burial. size me up & skip whatever semantics arrive to the tongue first. say: that boy he look like a hollowed-out grandfather clock. he look like a million-dollar god with a two-cent heaven. like all it takes is one kiss & before morning, you could scatter his whole mind across a field.
All the Gangbangers Forgot About the Drive-By
No one wants to see the block party broken up when their jam cracks open and drips out of the speakers
But no one wants to bleed out during a hot and unforgiving summer either
We all have to make sacrificesWe all have to keep the dirt from underneath the fingernails of our mothers
Even if it means not getting to wrap our hands around the swaying waist of Brittany from Algebra class who has a forest of thick braids that stretch almost to her running legs.Nothing produces movement like the gun.How two shots kissing the feet of an undressing sky can turn the dancefloor into a thirsty mouth faster than the streetlights in the calls rising from the project windowsIt is what I know will always comeOnce the heat moves in and ransacks the cool body of springThere is no song that can press its shoulder against this doorThere is only the dark alley shepherding you homeThere is only the boombox that has lived longer than your neighbor’s childThere is only the CD inside, it’s back red and scratched like it was tied to the whipping post and forced to skip in the same spot every night it playsYou see the hood’s been good to meYou see the hood’s been goodYou see the hoodYou see the hoodYou see.-Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib
No one wants to see the block party broken up when their jam cracks open and drips out of the speakers
But no one wants to bleed out during a hot and unforgiving summer either
We all have to make sacrificesWe all have to keep the dirt from underneath the fingernails of our mothers
Even if it means not getting to wrap our hands around the swaying waist of Brittany from Algebra class who has a forest of thick braids that stretch almost to her running legs.Nothing produces movement like the gun.How two shots kissing the feet of an undressing sky can turn the dancefloor into a thirsty mouth faster than the streetlights in the calls rising from the project windowsIt is what I know will always comeOnce the heat moves in and ransacks the cool body of springThere is no song that can press its shoulder against this doorThere is only the dark alley shepherding you homeThere is only the boombox that has lived longer than your neighbor’s childThere is only the CD inside, it’s back red and scratched like it was tied to the whipping post and forced to skip in the same spot every night it playsYou see the hood’s been good to meYou see the hood’s been goodYou see the hoodYou see the hoodYou see.-Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib
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