Kirjahaku

In her "witty and searing" first essay collection, award-winning poet Morgan Parker examines "the cultural legacy of Black womanhood and the meaning of finding 'well-being' in a world that wasn't built for you" (Vogue). "Riveting and deeply personal . . . filled with poignant insights."--CosmopolitanA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Electric Lit, Chicago Public Library, Kirkus Reviews Dubbed a voice of her generation, poet and writer Morgan Parker has spent much of her adulthood in therapy, trying to square the resonance of her writing with the alienation she feels in nearly every aspect of life, from her lifelong singleness to a battle with depression. She traces this loneliness to an inability to feel truly safe with others and a historic hyperawareness stemming from the effects of slavery. In a collection of essays as intimate as being in the room with Parker and her therapist, Parker examines America's cultural history and relationship to Black Americans through the ages. She touches on such topics as the ubiquity of beauty standards that exclude Black women, the implications of Bill Cosby's fall from grace in a culture predicated on acceptance through respectability, and the pitfalls of visibility as seen through the mischaracterizations of Serena Williams as alternately iconic and too ambitious. With piercing wit and incisive observations, You Get What You Pay For is ultimately a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness and its effects on mental well-being in America today. Weaving unflinching criticism with intimate anecdotes, this devastating memoir-in-essays paints a portrait of one Black woman's psyche--and of the writer's search to both tell the truth and deconstruct it.

"Unflinchingly irreverent, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartbreakingly honest." --Elizabeth Acevedo, National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author of The Poet XIn the vein of powerful reads like The Hate U Give and The Poet X, comes poet Morgan Parker's pitch-perfect novel about a black teenage girl searching for her identity when the world around her views her depression as a lack of faith and blackness as something to be politely ignored. Trapped in sunny, stifling, small-town suburbia, seventeen-year-old Morgan knows why she's in therapy. She can't count the number of times she's been the only non-white person at the sleepover, been teased for her "weird" outfits, and been told she's not "really" black. Also, she's spent most of her summer crying in bed. So there's that, too. Lately, it feels like the whole world is listening to the same terrible track on repeat--and it's telling them how to feel, who to vote for, what to believe. Morgan wonders, when can she turn this song off and begin living for herself? Loosely based on her own teenage life and diaries, this incredible debut by award-winning poet Morgan Parker will make readers stand up and cheer for a girl brave enough to live life on her own terms--and for themselves."Morgan Parker put THIS song on--and I hope it never turns off." --Nic Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin and Odd One Out "A triumphant first impression in the YA space." --Entertainment Weekly "An incredibly heartfelt, deep story about a girl's coming of age." --Refinery29

"Unflinchingly irreverent, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartbreakingly honest." --Elizabeth Acevedo, National Book Award winner and New York Times bestselling author of The Poet XIn the vein of powerful reads like The Hate U Give and The Poet X, comes poet Morgan Parker's pitch-perfect novel about a black teenage girl searching for her identity when the world around her views her depression as a lack of faith and blackness as something to be politely ignored. Trapped in sunny, stifling, small-town suburbia, seventeen-year-old Morgan knows why she's in therapy. She can't count the number of times she's been the only non-white person at the sleepover, been teased for her "weird" outfits, and been told she's not "really" black. Also, she's spent most of her summer crying in bed. So there's that, too. Lately, it feels like the whole world is listening to the same terrible track on repeat--and it's telling them how to feel, who to vote for, what to believe. Morgan wonders, when can she turn this song off and begin living for herself? Loosely based on her own teenage life and diaries, this incredible debut by award-winning poet Morgan Parker will make readers stand up and cheer for a girl brave enough to live life on her own terms--and for themselves."Morgan Parker put THIS song on--and I hope it never turns off." --Nic Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin and Odd One Out "A triumphant first impression in the YA space." --Entertainment Weekly "An incredibly heartfelt, deep story about a girl's coming of age." --Refinery29

Hope and Cameron made a five-year promise before college. Years pass and they never see each other again. But then one month before his planned wedding to Riley, Cameron looks outside and sees Hope in the pouring rain, watching him. Now, three years later, Cam has one day - a sick day on this last Friday of summer - to convince the one woman whose very existence breaths life into his lungs, that sometimes love like theirs actually does exist, and it's that kind of love that lives forever, no matter how hard you fight to forget about it and move on.From the author of non friction and Textual Encounters, Sick Day follows one man's day-long attempt to persuade the love of his life that sometimes it's okay to break promises if it means keeping the ones that count.

'This is a marvelous book. See for yourself. Morgan Parker is a fearlessly forward and forward-thinking literary star.' Terrance Hayes Morgan Parker's highly anticipated, fierce new collection of poetry uses political and pop-cultural references as a framework to explore 21st century black womanhood and its complexities

'To read MAGICAL NEGRO it is to wonder what each poem will do next, and to be reminded, over and over, of Parker's extraordinary lyric gifts' Meghan O'RourkeMAGICAL NEGRO is an archive of Black everydayness, a catalogue of contemporary folk heroes, an ethnography of ancestral grief, and an inventory of figureheads, idioms and customs. These poems are both elegy and jive, joke and declaration, songs of congregation and self-conception. They connect themes of loneliness, displacement, grief, ancestral trauma and objectification, while exploring tropes and stereotypes of Black Americans. Focused primarily on depictions of Black womanhood alongside personal narratives, the collection tackles interior and exterior politics - of both the body and society, of both the individual and the collective experience. In MAGICAL NEGRO, Morgan Parker creates a space of witness, of airing grievances, of pointing out patterns. In these poems are living documents, pleas, latent traumas, inside jokes and unspoken anxieties situated as firmly in the past as in the present - timeless Black melancholies and triumphs.

Set in California during the final months of the Obama/McCain election, Who Put This Song On? is the story of Morgan - a depressed black 17-year-old triumphantly figuring out her identity

From the author of Magical Negro, Winner of the National Book Critic's Circle Award'Hilarious and hard-hitting . . . it ripples with energy, insight, and searing music' Tracy K. Smith, author of Wade in the WaterOther People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night - the book that launched the career of one of our most important young American poets - is now in print for the first time in the UK, featuring a new introduction from Danez Smith.The debut collection from award-winning poet Morgan Parker demonstrates why she's become one of the most beloved writers working today. Her command of language is on full display. Parker bobs and weaves between humor and pathos, grief and anxiety, Gwendolyn Brooks and Jay-Z, the New York School and reality television. She collapses any foolish distinctions between the personal and the political, the 'high' and the 'low'. Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night not only introduced an essential new voice to the world, it contains everything readers have come to love about Morgan Parker's work.

Magical Negro is an archive of black everydayness, a catalog of contemporary folk heroes, an ethnography of ancestral grief, and an inventory of figureheads, idioms, and customs. These American poems are both elegy and jive, joke and declaration, songs of congregation and self-conception. They connect themes of loneliness, displacement, grief, ancestral trauma, and objectification, while exploring and troubling tropes and stereotypes of Black Americans. Focused primarily on depictions of black womanhood alongside personal narratives, the collection tackles interior and exterior politics--of both the body and society, of both the individual and the collective experience. In Magical Negro, Parker creates a space of witness, of airing grievances, of pointing out patterns. In these poems are living documents, pleas, latent traumas, inside jokes, and unspoken anxieties situated as firmly in the past as in the present--timeless black melancholies and triumphs.

Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night--the book that launched the career of one of our most important young American poets--is back in print.The debut collection from award-winning poet Morgan Parker demonstrates why she's become one of the most beloved writers working today. Her command of language is on full display. Parker bobs and weaves between humor and pathos, grief and anxiety, Gwendolyn Brooks and Jay-Z, the New York School and reality television. She collapses any foolish distinctions between the personal and the political, the "high" and the "low." Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night not only introduced an essential new voice to the world, it contains everything readers have come to love about Morgan Parker's work.