Joshua Bennett

“An essential addition to the American poetic canon.” —BooklistFrom an award-winning poet praised for his “rhapsodic, rigorous” work (The New Yorker) comes an immersive meditation on kindship, collectivity, and environmental thoughtWe (The People of The United States) is a book-length poem made to the measure of the modern world. Composed of 55 sections, it features a breathtaking range of characters and concerns: The Beach Boys, Gwendolyn Brooks, the invention of the typewriter, Zora Neale Hurston, Sun Ra, life on Mars, Robert Frost, experimental physics, The Jackson 5. Throughout the collection, Bennett summons Virgil’s Georgics as a lens through which to not only tell the story of his family, but a much larger one about the “form of the American mind,” our relationship to the natural world, and the pursuit of a dignified, abundant life. Published the year of the nation’s 250th anniversary, it is a collection that is right on time. One that calls us, as Langston Hughes once did, toward a future America that is not yet here, “and yet must be.”

**Winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize****Longlisted for the Griffin Prize and the Massachusetts Book Award****Soon to be adapted for screen by Lena Waithe and Warner Bros.**An award-winning collection and novella exploring the realm of speculative fiction, while addressing issues as varied as abolition, Black ecological consciousness, and the boundless promise of parenthoodAcross three sequences, Joshua Bennett’s new book recalls and reimagines social worlds almost but not entirely lost, all while gesturing toward the ones we are building even now, in the midst of a state of emergency, together. Bennett opens with a set of autobiographical poems that deal with themes of family, life, death, vulnerability, and the joys and dreams of youth. The central section, “The Book of Mycah,” features an alternate history where Malcolm X is resurrected from the dead, as is a young black man shot by the police some fifty years later in Brooklyn. The final section of The Study of Human Life are poems that Bennett has written about fatherhood, on the heels of his own first child being born.Praise for Joshua Bennett‘One of the brightest intellectual and political thinkers of a new generation’ Jesse McCarthy‘Bennett conjures a spirit of kinship that, illuminated by redolent imagery, borders on mythic’ New Yorker‘Joshua Bennett’s astounding, dolorous, rejoicing voice is indispensable’ Tracy K Smith

The powerful story of an art form that has transformed the cultural landscape, by an award-winning poet, professor, and slam champion. In 2009, at only twenty years old, Joshua Bennett was invited to recite a poem for President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House's Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word. Spike Lee and Saul Williams were in the audience, and it turned out to be the very same event where Lin-Manuel Miranda first performed a work-in-progress that revolutionised musical theatre - Hamilton. Blending memoir and literary analysis, Bennett shows how a handful of visionaries altered modern culture. With passion, wit and erudition, he charts the history of spoken-word poetry, as well as his coming-of-age journey as a writer. From the early influence of Miguel Algarín and the Nuyorican Poets Café to Amanda Gorman's inauguration poem for President Joe Biden, he celebrates the contributions of legendary figures such as Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni and Miguel Pinero, as well as how artists like MF DOOM, Jill Scott and Mos Def were inspired to develop their craft within their shared tradition. Spoken Word illuminates the profound influence that poetry has had everywhere melodious words are heard, from the West End to academia, from the podiums of political protest to cafés, from schools to rooms full of strangers all across the world.