Like a Hammer

Diana Marie Delgado is a poet, editor, playwright, and author of Tracing the Horse (BOA Editions, 2019) and Late-Night Talks with Men I Think I Trust (Center for Book Arts, 2015). With extensive experience in executive leadership, Delgado is committed to uplifting writers and cultivating vibrant creative communities. She holds degrees from UC Riverside and Columbia University’s MFA program in poetry and resides in Tucson, Arizona.Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is the author of Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, a semi-finalist for the 2019 National Book Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History in 2020, and From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, winner of the Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book in 2016. She is also editor of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, which won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBQT nonfiction in 2018. She is a 2021 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. Taylor is a contributing writer at The New Yorker, a former contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, and her writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Review, Paris Review, Guardian, The Nation, Jacobin, and Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, among others. Taylor is Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University.

"The range of voices and variety is what makes an anthology worth reading, and Like a Hammer offers the reader a kaleidoscope of textures. No weak poem exists within these pages; each is intensely vivid and sharp."—Rachel León, Chicago Review of Books“This poetry obliterates all that we have been told about the imprisoned, their families, their communities.”—Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, from the foreword“Like a Hammer is an abundance—of brilliance, of wisdom, of compassion, of joy as an antidote for pain, and hope that beats back despair. —Mitchell S. Jackson, author of Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family“Like A Hammer gathers voices we must uplift, and in so doing, uplift ourselves.”—Khadijah Queen, author of Radical Poetics: Essays on Literature & Culture“With nuance and rhythm, these poets take up the mantle of modern blues singers, witnessing America’s incarceration problem with heart and soul. ”—Caits Meissner, editor of The Sentences that Create Us

• Foreword: The Army of the Wronged, Keeanga-Yamahtta TaylorIntroduction, Diana Marie DelgadoI. Time Rules this Empire: Where Clocks Stand Still : .OR. THIS MALUS THING NEVER TO BE CONFUSED WITH JUSTICE, Randall HortonALL THE TV SHOWS ARE ABOUT COPS, Hanif AbdurraqibTRAP noun. \ˈtrap\, Sin á Tes SouhaitsMarriage, Rhionna AndersonWHICH IS IT?, Christopher MalecBLOOD HISTORY, Reginald Dwayne BettsArchitect 1, Vanessa Angélica VillarrealLost, Sandra JacksonUnder Correction I, Natalie DiazBehind the Wall, Christina PerniniII. Be Careful How You Speak about Rainbows: Beauty & GraceA.G.A.M., Eduardo MartinezBloom, Catherine LaFleurEclogue: A Field Guide and Cure, Marcelo Hernandez CastilloScattered like Yellow Feathers, Kennedy GisegeEn las primeras décadas del nuevo siglo, Raquel Salas RiveraIn the first decades of the new century, Raquel Salas RiveraKnees Next to Their Wallets, Tongo Eisen-MartinD.O.C. “department of castration,” Pat EwokIII. The Bill is Past Due: The Hustle10 Toes Down, Sin á Tes SouhaitsIf I were a Boy, Leeann ParkerThe Ballad of Stagolee, or Variation on a Theme by Sterling A. Brown with a Slight Nod to Etheridge Knight, John Murillo Political Arithmetic, Brian Batchelor black, body, Candace WilliamsALL THE TV SHOWS ARE ABOUT COPS, Hanif AbdurraquibEverything I Know About Horses, Kenneth NadeauIV: American Inferno: Inside the CellFree, Leeann Parkeramerican inferno, Evie ShockleyORDER’S UP, Christopher MalecFLASHBACK TO THE CELL, Randall HortonDevour , Catherine LaFleurCellfish, SHE>iBreak from Madness, Kennedy A. Gisegecinderblock calendars, Eduardo MartinezUnder Correction II, Natalie DiazONLY ONE CLOCK, Patricia SmithV. What Is Caged Is Also Kept from Us: The PeopleThe First Day, Vicki HicksBUT THE PHONE RINGS SOMETIMES, Patricia SmithWhat is Caged is Also Kept From Us, Ada LimónWhen Every Word is a Name, Reginald Dwayne BettsReasons, Jessica HillSometimes I Wonder if God Really Fuck With Me Like That, Sin á Tes Souhaitscan’t unsee, Evie ShockleyIdentity of a Prisoner, Cody BruceMy Father the Sahib, James PearlGustavo Guerra, VacillatingClick!, Sarah Lynn MaatschGhazal to Open Cages, Angel NafisVI. The Nakedness Dark Demands: Surveillance and ShapeshiftingArchitect 3, Vanessa Angélica VillarrealPages Thirteen to Twenty-One from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure, Nicole SealeyBrutality, Marina BuenoUnder Correction III, Natalie DiazSonnet Triptych, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo La promiscuidad tan indeseable, Roque Raquel Salas Rivera Such undesirable promiscuity, Roque Raquel Salas Rivera VII. Like A Hammer Across the Page: The Poor, Friendless & BlackBlack Boy with Cow, A Still Life, Nikky FinneyNotesAcknowledgmentsBiographies