Things Are Not Always as They Appear — R.D. Brown

One of Oprah Magazine's Ten Best Books of 2017 A TIME Magazine Best Paperback of 2017 Publishers Weekly 's Ten Best Poetry Collections of Spring A Most Anticipated book at Buzzfeed , NYLON and Bustle One of i-D's emerging female authors to read in 2017 ' Outstanding collection of poems. So much soul. So much intelligence in how Parker folds in cultural references and the experiences of black womanhood. Every poem will get its hooks into you. And of course, the poems about Beyonc are the greatest because Beyonc is our queen.' Roxane Gay 'I can and have read Morgan Parker's poems over and over . . . She writes history and pleasure and kitsch and abstraction, then vanishes like a god in about 13 inches.' Eileen Myles 'Morgan Parker has a mind like wildfire and these pages are lit. I can't recall being this enthralled, entertained, and made alert by a book in a very long time.' Jami Attenberg The only thing more beautiful than Beyonc is God, and God is a black woman sipping ros and drawing a lavender bath, texting her mom, belly-laughing in the therapist's office, feeling unloved, being on display, daring to survive. Morgan Parker stands at the intersections of vulnerability and performance, of desire and disgust, of tragedy and excellence. Unrelentingly feminist, tender, ruthless and sequinned, these poems are an altar to the complexities of black American womanhood in an age of non-indictments and dj vu, and a time of wars over bodies and power. These poems celebrate and mourn. They are a chorus chanting: You're gonna give us the love we need.