The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry by Len Lawson

The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry Reviews

• 
  Rae Gray

  I received a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway. (Thank you, Blair Publishing, and all the artists involved!)
  
  Like the editors and artists in this book, I also grew up on comic books and superheroes. I knew how I experienced these stories, not realizing that a POC could have a completely different relationship with them. I was shocked at my ignorance. The poems within it are amazing: powerful, poignant, and heart breaking. The artwork is rich and moving. This is a book to be read more than once, to really see what the poems are trying to convey. I look forward to it, and to reading more works by these incredible poets. I highly recommend this book to others.
• 
  Dr. Palacio

  Ah, once a man is loved or woman, they seek this ascension of more love as though an insistent spillage of power. But, to be so want and be bereft of knowing; no man is wholly hated no man is wholly loved is a heaven- it refreshes having knowledge of each palpable fluer, knowing whether you go there or else; there may be acceptance of not. To be black is not wholly to be hated nor wholly loved. To be human is a case of the same skin. It oft fills the well of my soul knowing one may never please all mankind; even if they ask of this in a begging alms it is not of realness. If the Buddha was not fully loved or if Jesus was not fully hated what can we ask of a tale of human nature?
  
  Am i oddity or i?
  
  I jested with Sam Saxx, does this bed look black enough? Does my hair have too many rivulets? For awhile I thought I was gay, then the fly buzzed and now all I remember in the echo of Flaubert was does a word still meaning be pressed acrid? If a fairy had flown through, is there a curtsy of anthema? I looked at my brown supple skin on the hand that shook me hard as though I were being reprimanded for god, and I saw the black man’s eyes hunger to say; o’ hoary is this the night of my dawning? When I play vixen i saw my favorite women being shewed to their homes. When krsna ushered gopis to the temple of field, one stayed because a door was locked onto her; apparently she died of greedy men- so too, i an odd bird crowed like a jambole but niegh cried for raison veritus. Is nightmare a jackel breathing on spilt milk or a Nurse dressing a wound for a dead soldier who’s been dead long into the wane and still peers into the sun tilted town feeding over histrionics. Was the castle ever stormed when a man dark in invasion lent his ear to the soul, and plucked history? Sitting like a tiara upon a brood as though they knew to listen. Soft peril some new grace. I spoke of town country and paced like a quack with his head removed sitting upon his palm, a twisting of grooves where a frenetic pattern of paths intertwined and a magic cuss or duende became me to mock. I lent thee the ear of my path and heard a jerk as though piston and soon a flare of solar shook Jesus; he mumbled slow in heat, ‘I need to clock out, I don’t really get paid overtime like that.’ Watch the man circles cemeteries smoking an eye. A patchwork tussled. And, so I wove a bray and thought should I be bridge of San Luis Rey or troll haunting interwebbed dawn- was I not oddity and the gold cast sun itself?- Harry Edgar Pope Angelus
• 
  Sofia

  First brush with afrofuturism—made me want to dig in deep to the genre
• 
  Sarah

  I absolutely need more poetry like this magnificent collection!!! Gods I seriously enjoyed reading this book!!