Douglas Kearney has published six collections, including Buck Studies (Fence Books, 2016), winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Award, the CLMP Firecracker Award for Poetry, and the California Book Award silver medal (Poetry). M. NourbeSe Philip calls Kearney's collection of libretti, Someone Took They Tongues. (Subito, 2016), "a seismic, polyphonic mash-up." Kearney's Mess and Mess And (Noemi Press, 2015), was a Small Press Distribution Handpicked Selection that Publisher's Weekly called "an extraordinary book." He has received a Whiting Writer's Award, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, residencies/fellowships from Cave Canem, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and others. Kearney teaches Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and lives in St. Paul with his family.

Contents

1. Come Back Striking What's Above

Buck

Well

Property Values

Do the Backseat Jam!

Everyday (I Gets)

Black Flight

Sand Fire (or The Pool, 2016)-

...Fox!

Livestock

Promissorry Note

Dogged

Close

Borax

The Post-

Welter

Demonology

2. A Negrocious Show of Feels

Sho

Static

Do the Cruiseline-up Slowgrind-up!

Negroes Are a Fatsuit, ¿ Hollywood, USA

Just Wanna Be Like

Deformation

First, She Cuts the Stems

The Shootout

Having Drowned Our Lovers

Do the Six-Foot Jump Down!

The Drifters After School

Eulogy for a Pair of Kicks

Eulogy for an Afro Pick

Fire

"...say the magic words"

Manesology

Acknowledgments & Notes