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Douglas Kearney has published six collections, including Buck Studies (Fence Books, 2016), winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Award, the CLMP Firecracker Award for Poetry, and the California Book Award silver medal (Poetry). M. NourbeSe Philip calls Kearney’s collection of libretti, Someone Took They Tongues. (Subito, 2016), “a seismic, polyphonic mash-up.” Kearney’s Mess and Mess And (Noemi Press, 2015), was a Small Press Distribution Handpicked Selection that Publisher’s Weekly called “an extraordinary book.” He has received a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, residencies/fellowships from Cave Canem, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and others. Kearney teaches Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities and lives in St. Paul with his family.

"Always playful, forever in dialogue, Kearney’s poems come at being from all sides. This book is the crowning achievement of Kearney’s body of work to date."—Judges' citation, Griffin Poetry AwardI think the book is anti-spectacle. It is asking the reader to see, to really see (not for show), and to reckon with the atrocities of our time. All the while, Kearney’s language is always new, is always about possibility and expansion, and always dazzling.—Victoria Chang, LARB

• Contents1. Come Back Striking What’s AboveBuck Well Property Values Do the Backseat Jam! Everyday (I Gets) Black Flight Sand Fire (or The Pool, 2016)— …Fox! Livestock Promissorry Note Dogged Close Borax The Post- Welter Demonology 2. A Negrocious Show of FeelsSho Static Do the Cruiseline-up Slowgrind-up! Negroes Are a Fatsuit, ♥ Hollywood, USA Just Wanna Be Like DeformationFirst, She Cuts the Stems The ShootoutHaving Drowned Our LoversDo the Six-Foot Jump Down!The Drifters After SchoolEulogy for a Pair of KicksEulogy for an Afro PickFire“…say the magic words”ManesologyAcknowledgments & Notes