Piercing and powerful.
A chorus of poets bears witness to the violence of policing through powerful testimonies and calls to envision otherwise.
Gathering 38 poems, most written for this anthology, by an impressive roster of authors, editors Tison and Chapman assemble a collection that addresses policing across the past, present, and imagined futures. Some contributors mourn lives cut short by police violence; others explore inherited fear, over-policing, displacement, surveillance, and the failures of institutions charged with public safety. Still others envision alternatives rooted in care, accountability, community, and love. A grandmother-run police department becomes a joyful meditation on abolition; a traffic stop unfolds through generations of accumulated terror; elegies for the dead stand alongside visions of survival, resistance, and renewal. As Bao Phi writes in “8 (9),” “May your names be the hymn / wind that sways / police bullets to miss.” The collection’s greatest strength lies in its multiplicity. The complex realities of anger, grief, exhaustion, tenderness, humor, and hope coexist without diminishing one another. Contributor notes further ground many selections in lived experience, expanding the act of witnessing beyond the poems themselves. Davis’ evocative artwork similarly refuses complacency, weaving portraits, abstractions, and documentary images into a visual conversation. Rather than presenting hope as the antidote to grief, the anthology positions imagination itself as a form of survival, asking readers to carry memory, resist erasure, and envision futures larger than the violence of the present.
Piercing and powerful. (editors’ note, poem notes, contributor bios, further reading) (Poetry. 12-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798765647240
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Zest Books
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Small but mighty necessary reading.
A miniature manifesto for radical queer acceptance that weaves together the personal and political.
Eli, a cis gay white Jewish man, uses his own identities and experiences to frame and acknowledge his perspective. In the prologue, Eli compares the global Jewish community to the global queer community, noting, “We don’t always get it right, but the importance of showing up for other Jews has been carved into the DNA of what it means to be Jewish. It is my dream that queer people develop the same ideology—what I like to call a Global Queer Conscience.” He details his own isolating experiences as a queer adolescent in an Orthodox Jewish community and reflects on how he and so many others would have benefitted from a robust and supportive queer community. The rest of the book outlines 10 principles based on the belief that an expectation of mutual care and concern across various other dimensions of identity can be integrated into queer community values. Eli’s prose is clear, straightforward, and powerful. While he makes some choices that may be divisive—for example, using the initialism LGBTQIAA+ which includes “ally”—he always makes clear those are his personal choices and that the language is ever evolving.
Small but mighty necessary reading. (resources) (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09368-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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