Danez Smith: Homie

Poet, Danez Smith, presents their new collection Homie. Rooted in the loss of one of Smith’s close friends, this book comes out of the search for joy and intimacy within a nation where both can seem scarce and getting scarcer.

Smith is back with their highly anticipated third collection, Homie, a magnificent anthem about the saving grace of friendship.

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.

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. Part friendship diary, part bright elegy, part war cry, Homie is written for friends: for Danez’s, for yours. Joined by writer and performance poet, Britteney Rose Black Kapri.