Worldly Things
Michael Kleber-Diggs
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Worldly Things
Michael Kleber-Diggs
About This Book
Finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Award in Poetry
"Sometimes, " Michael Kleber-Diggs writes in this winner of the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, "everything reduces to circles and lines."
In these poems, Kleber-Diggs names delight in the same breath as loss. Moments suffused with loveâteaching his daughter how to drive; watching his grandmother bake a cake; waking beside his beloved to ponder trumpet mechanicsâcouple with moments of wrenching griefâa father's life ended by a gun; mourning children draped around their mother's waist; Freddie Gray's death in police custody. Even in the refuge-space of dreams, a man calls the police on his Black neighbor.
But Worldly Things refuses to "offer allegiance" to this centuries-old status quo. With uncompromising candor, Kleber-Diggs documents the many ways America systemically fails those who call it home while also calling upon our collective potential for something better. "Let's create folklore side-by-side, " he urges, asking us to aspire to a form of nurturing defined by tenderness, to a kind of community devoted to mutual prosperity. "All of us want, " after all, "our share of light, and just enough rainfall."
Sonorous and measured, the poems of Worldly Things offer needed guidance on ways forwardâtoward radical kindness and a socially responsible poetics.
Additional Recognition:
A New York Times Book Revie w "New & Noteworthy Poetry" Selection
A Library Journal "Poetry Title to Watch 2021"
A Chicago Review of Books "Poetry Collection to Read in 2021"
A Reader's Digest "14 Amazing Black Poets to Know About Now" Selection
A Books Are Magic "Recommended Reading" Selection
An Indie Gift Guide 2021 Indie Next Selection