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    Counting Descent
    Counting Descent
    Counting Descent
    Ebook99 pages50 minutes

    Counting Descent

    By Clint Smith

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    From the author of How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

    * Winner, 2017 Black Caucus of the American Library Association Literary Award

    * Finalist, 2017 NAACP Image Awards

    * "One Book One New Orleans" 2017 Book Selection

    * Published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, New Republic, Boston Review, The Guardian, The Rumpus, and The Academy of American Poets

    "So many of these poems just blow me away. Incredibly beautiful and powerful." -- Michelle Alexander, Author of The New Jim Crow

    "Counting Descent is a tightly-woven collection of poems whose pages act like an invitation. The invitation is intimate and generous and also a challenge; are you up to asking what is blackness? What is black joy? How is black life loved and lived? To whom do we look to for answers? This invitation is not to a narrow street, or a shallow lake, but to a vast exploration of life. And you’re invited. -- Elizabeth Acevedo, Author of Beastgirl & Other Origin Myths

    "These poems shimmer with revelatory intensity, approaching us from all sides to immerse us in the America that America so often forgets." -- Gregory Pardlo

    "Counting Descent is more than brilliant. More than lyrical. More than bluesy. More than courageous. It is terrifying in its ability to at once not hide and show readers why it wants to hide so badly. These poems mend, meld and imagine with weighted details, pauses, idiosyncrasies and word patterns I've never seen before." -- Kiese Laymon, Author of Long Division

    Clint Smith's debut poetry collection, Counting Descent, is a coming of age story that seeks to complicate our conception of lineage and tradition.

    "Do you know what it means for your existence to be defined by someone else’s intentions?"

    Smith explores the cognitive dissonance that results from belonging to a community that unapologetically celebrates black humanity while living in a world that often renders blackness a caricature of fear. His poems move fluidly across personal and political histories, all the while reflecting on the social construction of our lived experiences. Smith brings the reader on a powerful journey forcing us to reflect on all that we learn growing up, and all that we seek to unlearn moving forward.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWrite Bloody Publishing
    Release dateJan 6, 2020
    ISBN9781938912665
    Author

    Clint Smith

    Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times Bestseller, and the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award.

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    • 5/5
      “I don't remember the last time policesirens didn't feel like gasping for air.I don't remember what it means notto be considered something meantto flounder, to flap againstthe surface while others watch youuntil the flailing.......stops.”“When the sixth cab passes you,imagine yourself a puddleexisting as both transparency& filth. Something that won't be thereby the afternoon.”“...We've got to protest on these pages. This ink be our picket line.How can we write about the soil and not the blood?How can we write about the treeand not talk about the noose?”-This is a powerful collection, addressing the racial issues that continue to plagueour country. Highly recommended.

    Book preview

    Counting Descent - Clint Smith

    way.

    Something You Should Know

    is that as a kid, I once worked at a pet store.

    I cleaned the cages

    of small animals like turtles, hamsters,

    rabbits, and hermit crabs.

    I watched the hermit crab continue

    to grow, molt, shed its skin and scurry across

    the bottom of the aquarium to find a new shell.

    Which left me afraid for the small creature,

    to run around all exposed that way, to have

    to live its entire life requiring something else

    to feel safe. Perhaps that is when I became afraid

    of needing anything beyond myself. Perhaps

    that is why, even now, I can want so desperately

    to show you all of my skin, but am more afraid

    of meeting you, exposed, in open water.

    what the ocean said to the black boy

    you know how to swim boy?

    i know you can float

    felt you bobbing along my surface

    before you even knew you could

    they say you just a conflagration

    of bad intentions boy

    they use me to put you out

    don’t want you burning this place down

    again

    they see

    a little too much l’ouverture in you

    a little too much turner

    a little too much of what they already had enough of

    what you see when you look at me?

    you know how many of y’all I swallowed?

    you just a drop of ink

    on this canvas

    boy

    they call me blue because

    they don’t understand how the sky work

    they call you black because

    they don’t understand how god work

    For the Boys at the Bottom of the Sea

    We are charred vessels

    vestiges of wood & wonder

    anchors tethered to our bows.

    It is the irony of a ship burning

    at sea, surrounded by

    the very thing that could

    save us.

    The Boy and His Ball

    The boy is bending down to hold the laces

    tight between his index finger and his thumb.

    Practices somersaulting the strings between

    one another, his conductor’s baton tossing

    revolutions through the air.

    Over         under

             through         pull.

    Over         under

             through         pull.

    Now, he lets the shoestring halos fall

    on either side.

    The cleats, when he runs,

    dig themselves into the endless earth.

    The soil spits upwards, black

    streaks airborne

    cascading into the jubilant wake

    of the child.

    His feet flourish around the ball, learning

    the orbit of taut leather, the texture of low-

    cut grass. The boy and his brown body

    glimmer under a sun that showers

    light onto every outstretched

    blade. How when the boy dribbles, he looks

    like he’s dancing, how he’s got

    capoeira in his hips, how his feet

    have never learned of fatigue.

    Soles

    You’ve been sitting at that desk a lot lately. Just you, those papers and pen. Feels like you barely use us anymore. We remember when your whole world relied on everything we did. We’re the ones who made it so the other kids didn’t pay attention to how many books you read but instead how fast we moved. We won the race to the fence and back every Tuesday in P.E. Left Eric and Calvin in the dust. Gave you something to claim as champion at a lunch table where pride was all you had. Sure, we’ll admit it, we didn’t always know how to act when the DJ turned up the volume. The beat got faster, and we made you look more hopscotch than hip-hop, more Urkel than Usher. But that was never in the job description. Still remember when you threw away the New Balance and

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