Homie

What happens when a poet of color finds a wide audience in the United States? The first page of this collection reveals a secret title, one which Smith did not want non-black people saying aloud. This is just one of this collection’s many charms, that it has at least two audiences in mind. The poems are equally adept at making gestures towards white literary respectability, and also knowing how to say fuck it with total aplomb. There is a thrilling sense that every line could at any moment turn from being a joke to being a takedown and back again without warning. Released prior to the pandemic, Homie is the best way to end this year. Everything that we need to hear about the necessity of friendship and joy in the face of bleakest loss and violence Homie already said when it was published in January. It is only fitting that Smith has the last word in 2020.