No Bedtime Stories Of Soil by Landon Smith
“No Bedtime Stories of Soil is steeped in a rich lineage of urgency, candor, and weight. It is a love letter and an elegy, a plea and a call to order. The poems courageously examine the inheritance of grief, struggle, hope, and survival against oppression. Filled with unflinching fight, this collection is determined to see itself in the future, to press toward the possibility of sky when the soil is crumbling beneath our feet.”
—Suzi Q Smith, Author of A Gospel of Bones; Poems for the End of the World
“Whether or not this "capitalist genocide called country" wants to admit it, liberation is the only way and No Bedtime Stories of Soil meets you where you are on the path towards it—be it as a beacon, an invitation, or a firebomb through the window of your most comforting fallacy. Part effigy of white supremacist capitalism, part ode to Black resistance and survival, Smith has crafted a thought-provoking, honest examination of the current state of Black radical thought."
— Meilani Clay, author of and the creek don't rise
“No Bedtime Stories of Soil is a riveting assemblage that interrogates imperialism and its insidious offspring. Smith’s debut collection is a stoic image-river beside decaying soil. What better mechanism than language to remind us that our duty as poets is to the people, not the page? What better way to chronicle these perilous conditions?”
—Daniel B. Summerhill author of Divine, Divine, Divine; Mausoleum of Flowers
“Smith takes us to the afterlife and back, asking 'what does freedom truly mean and have you ever truly had it?' With words sharpened to interrogate the many faces of this global police state, No Bedtime Stories of Soil is a visceral dance with death and a call for Black liberation amidst a decomposing capitalist landscape. This collection is a roadmap through lineage and legacy; these poems are both a second burial and a love letter to a freer future.”
— Nia McAllister, Poet, Public Programs Manager Museum of the African Diaspora