About the Book
Afrofuturist poetry that envisions Black people finding new worlds of freedom.
Following the traditions of Eve L. Ewing, Rio Cortez, and Douglas Kearney, jason b. crawford's YEET! envisions the Black community lifted off the earth and set free towards the stars. These poems ask what a free Black people would look like and how we might achieve such a thing. This collection presents a new take on Afrofuturism and utopianism. Rather than looking to a future of technological change, it steps years ahead to show how people are happier once they are no longer owned. These poems speak to racism, gun violence, colonization, global warming, flight, joy, friendship, and noise. This is a book about creating new worlds without the systems of supremacy that held down the old one.
YEET! is the winner of the 2023 Omnidawn 1st/2nd Poetry Book Contest, chosen by Sawako Nakasayu.
About the Author :
jason b. crawford (they/he/she) is the author of Year of the Unicorn Kidz. Their work has been published in POETRY Magazine, Academy of American Poets, Cincinnati Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and RHINO Poetry, among others. They are a 2023 Emerging Writers Fellow for Lambda Literary.
Review :
"[W]hile Crawford toggles between occasional visual poetics, his lyricism takes the lead as he works the knot of histories and futures. . . . Crawford explores the lines between blood and flower, between histories, inevitabilities, and possibilities. In 'Life before the war was beautiful (after Kuzbass Zubrii),' 'orchids could fold from the plots in our hands, spin themselves into a gorgeous golden ribbon, wrap the necks of all the neighborhood’s children.'"
"The poems in YEET! act as incantations for hope, for life, for an 'us.' Through its variety of images, rhythms, and forms, YEET! saves room for joy, love, anger, sadness, healing, and yearning."
"YEET! is a vibrant and powerful collection that prods at the future sacred and meditates on the archive of our own choosing. In poems that transfigure or vanish before our eyes, Crawford invites the reader into the contagious energy of their world -- a place where the scaffolding is Black, collective, and alive."
"There is an intense cosmic energy required to do what crawford’s YEET! does: to give life and love to that impossible, yet constant, toggle between that which cannot be said, and that which cannot be ignored. It tenderly holds the complexity of being Black and queer in the kind of country where skittles can be heartbreaking. It tends marigolds and dahlias, right in the breach. Violence, beauty, smoke. Poetic craft runs deep and deft, exploratory. We ponder what to do with the 'dirt-spit bouquet.' The reader is carried—from intimate poems of friendship and love, to the vast horizon—'small petals of lavender cleaning the sky of its grief.' When not carrying the beat of a party, with all its overtones and undertones, the poems pulse with quiet grace and heat. This book is a radiant, intergalactic, hot bloom of a fire—it is so much love."
"YEET! is a collection of departures and arrivals where all roads lead to love. Guided by a heart that uses form, homage, and boundless lyric to lead the way, be prepared to exit these poems with wings added to your spirit. No, you’re not dead. You’re headed someplace magnificent, baby. crawford is a bright star in the darkest corner of night. Follow them. These poems are lanterns, check-points, medicine, and shelter in the rough and cruel terrain of our shared today."
"This butt-kick of a book, penned by one of contemporary poetry's most insisting demagogues, is grounded by one poem's memorable opening line: i start every story with noticing. In YEET!, that act of witnessing is in turn single-minded, mournful, merciless, hurtful or threaded with black boy joy. As we stumble through a new world where truth is in such short supply, let's be thankful that crawford steadfastly refuses the safety of silence as they confront the crusade to disappear Black history, the villainy of wars, and the battles we fight ceaselessly within ourselves. These are poems that must be confronted and lived—enter their lyric with your mind wide open, and let a consummate witness tell you what they've learned."
