Owed

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From a 2021 Whiting Award and Guggenheim Fellow recipient, a “rhapsodic, rigorous poetry collection, which pays homage to everyday Black experience in the U.S.” (The New Yorker)

Gregory Pardlo described Joshua Bennett’s first collection of poetry, The Sobbing School, as an “arresting debut” that was “abounding in tenderness and rich with character,” with a “virtuosic kind of code switching.” Bennett’s new collection, Owed, is a book with celebration at its center. Its primary concern is how we might mend the relationship between ourselves and the people, spaces, and objects we have been taught to think of as insignificant, as fundamentally unworthy of study, reflection, attention, or care. Spanning the spectrum of genre and form–from elegy and ode to origin myth–these poems elaborate an aesthetics of repair. What’s more, they ask that we turn to the songs and sites of the historically denigrated so that we might uncover a new way of being in the world together, one wherein we can truthfully reckon with the brutality of the past and thus imagine the possibilities of our shared, unpredictable present, anew.FINALIST FOR THE NEW ENGLAND BOOK AWARD IN POETRY 

“Themes of praise and debt pervade this rhapsodic, rigorous poetry collection, which pays homage to everyday Black experience in the U.S. . . . Bennett conjures a spirit of kinship that, illuminated by redolent imagery, borders on mythic, and boldly stakes claim to ‘some living, future / English, & everyone in it / is immortal.’” —The New Yorker

“Bennett captures the beauty of what really matters in life—the memories, youth sports, family traditions and little moments that many of us take for granted . . . [Owed] couldn’t have been more timely.” —Salon

“Not only are these poems eloquent but also lyrical, intelligent, and, occasionally, funny. Most reflect upon and communicate the pain, joy, and intensity of the current Black experience . . . In a time when many confront and protest the racism prevalent in our society, Bennett’s new book is vital.” —Library Journal (starred review) 

“[Owed] intertwines the author’s multifaceted professions as poet, performer, and professor through powerful, crisp poems that celebrate the complexity, joy, and heartbreak of the Black experience in America . . . Bennett’s poems are more necessary than ever.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[A]stonishing poems that explore the past, childhood, family relationships, identity, and memory among many other themes, all expertly rendered through a mixture of forms . . . [Bennett] has a gift for building and setting vivid scenes and complex stories within the small frames of his stanzas.” —Booklist

“We’re lucky to have Joshua Bennett’s Owed at this hour in America. The resonances of ‘ode’ and ‘owed’ underscore his tremendous acts of invention amid ‘an ever-expanding grand Black Epilogue.’ Lyrical and political fibers are woven through narratives as clear and idiosyncratic as the plastic on your grandmother’s couch. Owed fights for the ‘ground where the children can play & come home whole.’ Bennett swings with song and exaltation; he swings with resistance and defense. I’m glad to have his amazing collection right now. I will be glad to have it tomorrow.” —Terrance Hayes, author of American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

“Owed is an indictment of the state even as it is an ode to the ongoingness of Black imagination. Here, a single moment shimmers with a million resonances of attention. So the world is loved this much. And what has been taken has been taken this much. Bennett insists on repair even as he mourns what is utterly irreparable. This book is part of a breathful, bodied fight for Black life. I am emboldened and sharpened by Bennett’s genius and by his love made plain across each of these shimmering pages.” —Aracelis Girmay, author of The Black Maria Poet, performer, and scholar Joshua Bennett is the author of three collections of poetry: The Study of Human Life, Owed, and The Sobbing School; a book of criticism, Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man; and a work of narrative nonfiction, Spoken Word: A Cultural History. He received his PhD in English from Princeton University, and is currently Professor of Literature and Distinguished Chair of the Humanities at MIT. His writing has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. In 2021, he was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Whiting Award in Poetry and Nonfiction. He lives in Boston.Token Sings the Blues

You always or almost
always only one
in the room
Maybe two
Three is a crowd
Three is a gang
Three is a company
of thieves Three is
wow there’s so many of you
Three will get you confused
with people that look nothing
like you you get called
Devin your name isn’t
Devin you do your best
not to ignore such casual
erasure you know silence
will be received as affirmation
praise even & you always affirmative
You affirmative action action figure
You fantastic first black
friend You first-ballot
quota keeper You almost 
cry when your history
professor says you know
in this country the gold standard
used to be people Funny how
no one comes right out
& says things like you people
anymore it’s all code
words like thug or 
diversity hire You diversity
all by yourself You contain
multitudes & are yet
contained everywhere you go
confined like there is always 
someone watching you & isn’t 
there & isn’t that the entire point
of this flesh you inherited
this unrepentant stain be
twice as good mama says
as if what they have is worth
your panic worth measuring
your very life against & you always
remember to measure
Your hair, your volume, your tone
over email, you perpetually
sorry You don’t know why 
you apologize to no one
in particular just for being around
& in your body at the same time
You know your body 
is the real problem
You monster You beast
of burden You beast & burden
You horse but human
You centaur You map
the stars & pull back your bow
to shoot
the moon in its one good white eye
You are everything
your big sister says
& on your best
days above ground you
believe herUS

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