They are a 2014 Ruth Lilly - Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow, a Cave Canem and VONA alum, and a recipient of a McKnight Foundation Fellowship. Their work has published & featured widely including in Poetry Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, Buzzfeed, Blavity, & Ploughshares. Their 2nd collection will be published by Graywolf Press in 2017. ' This is a book full of the turbulence of thought and desire, piloted by a writer who never loses their way ' New York Timesĭanez Smith is the author of boy (2014, YesYes Books), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. Part friendship diary, part bright elegy, part war cry, Homie is written for for Danez's friends, for yours. But then the phone lights up, or a shout comes up to the window, and family - blood and chosen - arrives with just the right food and some redemption. In poems of rare power and generosity, Smith acknowledges that in a country overrun by violence, xenophobia and disparity, and in a body defined by race, queerness, and diagnosis, it can be hard to survive, even harder to remember reasons for living. 'In its cutting compassion, Homie is as much a celebration of loved ones' lives as it is a lament for their loss, equally a war cry for kinship and the burial dirge after the battle' Amanda GormanĪ mighty anthem about the saving grace of friendship, Danez Smith's highly anticipated collection Homie is rooted in their search for joy and intimacy in a time where both are scarce. and provocative and moving meditation on friendship, sex and blackness,' Guardian

Homie by danez smith