Danez Smith's Homie Reviewed at the New York Times

The New York Times's Paul Sehgal comes in with high praise for Danez Smith's latest poetry collection, Homie (Graywolf, 2020). Sehgal writes, "The radiance of 'Homie' arrives like a shock, like found money, like a flower fighting through concrete." From there:

It is a paean to friendship — “that first & cleanest love”; a hosanna to those “friend-drunk” boys on their bikes and the companions who sustain Smith, who have kept despair and suicide at bay. They are “tish & blaire / & josh & jamila & cam & aaron & nate.” They are fellow poets including Angel Nafis, Morgan Parker, Hanif Abdurraqib, Eve Ewing, Saeed Jones — all those “whose names burst my heart / to joyful smithereens.”

The circle of beloveds widens, to include the living and the dead. In “gay cancer,” Smith addresses the poets — including Melvin Dixon and Essex Hemphill — who have died of H.I.V./AIDS (“my wrist to my ear / you’re here”). The circle expands to include strangers, whole communities. In “my president,” the poet hovers over the city, all-seeing, all-praising: “i sing your names / sing your names / your names / my mighty anthem.” Smith offers benedictions to the “nurse’s swollen feet / & the braider’s exhausted hands,” the rabbi and the bartender; the “boys outside walgreens selling candy / for a possibly fictional basketball team”; “the dude at the pizza spot who will give you a free slice / if you are down to wait for him to finish the day’s fourth prayer.”

These poems do not merely exalt friendship; they also explore its darker corners, the terrors of being unmasked and truly known.

Read it all, from the top, at NYT.