Knucklehead

Starred review from November 18, 2024
Poet and educator Keith (How the Boogeyman Became a Poet) delivers a poignant, hip-hop-fueled collection of poetry that’s equal parts memoir, love letter, and rallying cry to Black boys. Often marginalized by society and labeled a “knucklehead” as a child, Keith highlights in this powerfully affirming assemblage the ability to use language as an essential force for rising above various societal challenges. Throughout, the self-proclaimed nerd (“for real for real, I wanna be known as that artsy-fartsy intellect”) tackles topics surrounding toxic masculinity, police violence, and generational trauma and invokes “the spirit of everything African within me” to declare freedom from these issues using varying poetic styles. Keith’s personal journey—including his adolescence as a Black gay youth living a camouflaged existence where “girl-friends were my girlfriend” and the freedom that came with living “onstage, unafraid”—is interwoven with poems depicting other Black boys’ treatment in a society that marks them from birth as targets. Searing language and palpable messaging permeate this dazzling, from-the-heart poetry collection that’s sure to inspire the eponymous knuckleheads and beyond to find their voice and use it for liberation. Ages 14–up. Agent: Annie Hwang, Ayesha Pande Literary.

December 15, 2024
A love letter in verse to Black boys and men. In this collection, poet Keith reclaims the labelknucklehead in a series of entries addressed to Black boys and men, who are often prejudged by society. In this work that is part memoir and part inspirational advice, he writes about the healing role poetry had and continues to have in his life. The first letter offers readers an affirmation--an intentional invitation to the unheard to join him on this journey and a declaration that he sees and understands them: "whatever force from whatever source / that created the planet that can't fit inside of you / is the same blast that brought about the one / rotating inside of me too." The poems fluidly move through history, harking back to the author's African roots. There are pieces about his childhood: Fighting was central to much of his young life due to other people's toxic understanding of masculinity. A noteworthy piece on silence demonstrates how policing and prisons silence Black boys and men; another poem speaks to the power of language. Other entries describe falling in love and Keith's marriage to his husband, serving as a beacon of hope for the queer and questioning. Black-and-white illustrations are interspersed among the poems in this thematically wide-ranging collection, which flow well into one another. Will resonate deeply with readers and poets on a path of self-discovery.(Poetry. 14-18)

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