Above Ground

Clint Smith follows up his incredible nonfiction debut with this return to poetry, Above Ground. In this collection, readers spend time with a speaker who is trying to make sense of the American intersections of race, violence, and family. The poems about fatherhood are uplifting and silly; the poems about gun violence in schools are heartbreaking. Smith, a well-known historian, toggles a fine line between sharply observed emotions and superb contextual offerings through a personal lens on current tensions in the United States. Both intimate and sweeping, Above Ground is a welcoming collection of poems that will challenge and comfort teen readers and their parental figures.