[Insert] Boy

Poetry. LGBT Studies. African American Studies.

Winner, Lambda Literary Award, Gay Poetry 2015.
Chosen by Don Share for Boston Globe’s Best Poetry Books, 2014.
2016 Kate Tufts Discovery Award.
Finalist, Norma Farber First Book Award, Poetry Society of America.

The poems of [INSERT] BOY have need of the body—desire it and lament its mortality—but over and again they assert Smith’s seemingly religious belief that every sound the body makes, every word and wail, is only possible through connection to some other plane of existence. This is a lovely, voice-driven book, singing high notes sharp as a switchblade.—Jericho Brown

Danez Smith lays down the gauntlet for all of us to speak our deepest truths with more elegance, more ferocity, and almost more beauty than a reader can bear.—Gabrielle Calvocoressi