Kemi Alabi's transcendent debut reimagines the poetic and cultural traditions from which it is born, troubling the waters of some of our country's central and ordained fictions-those mythic politics of respectability, resilience, and redemption. Instead of turning to a salvation that has been forced upon them, Alabi turns to the body and the earth as sites of paradise defined by the pleasure and possibility of Black, queer fugitivity. Through tender love poems, righteous prayers, and vital provocations, we see the colonizers we carry within ourselves being laid to rest. Against Heaven is a praise song made for the flames of a burning empire-a freedom dream that shapeshifts into boundless multiplicities for the wounds made in the name of White supremacy and its gods. Alabi has written an astonishing collection of magnificent range, commanding the full spectrum of the Black, queer spirit's capacity for magic, love, and ferocity in service of healing-the highest power there is.

Winner of the Academy of American Poets First Book Award, selected by Claudia Rankine.

About the Author
Kemi Alabi's work has been published in Poetry, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2, Best New Poets 2019, and elsewhere, and they are the recipient of the 2020 Beacon Street Prize. Alabi is a coeditor of The Echoing Ida Collection and lives in Chicago.


Book Information
ISBN 9781644450826
Author Kemi Alabi
Format Paperback
Page Count 80
Imprint Graywolf Press,U.S.
Publisher Graywolf Press,U.S.
Weight(grams) 182g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 179mm * 8mm