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There's a Revolution Outside, My Love

Letters from a Crisis

Letters from a Crisis

Letters from a Crisis

Edited by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman

Edited by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman

Edited by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman

Edited by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman

Read by Robin Miles, Ryan Vincent Anderson, Anthony Rey Perez, Kay Eluvian, Kyla Garcia, Kaleo Griffith, Greta Jung, Tanis Parenteau, Quincy Surasmith and Pej Vahdat
Edited by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman

Read by Robin Miles, Ryan Vincent Anderson, Anthony Rey Perez, Kay Eluvian, Kyla Garcia, Kaleo Griffith, Greta Jung, Tanis Parenteau, Quincy Surasmith and Pej Vahdat
Edited by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman

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Paperback $16.95

May 11, 2021 | ISBN 9780593314692

Ebook $13.99

May 11, 2021 | ISBN 9780593314708

Audiobook Download $20.00

May 11, 2021 | 558 Minutes

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    There's a Revolution Outside, My Love by
    Paperback $16.95
    May 11, 2021 | ISBN 9780593314692

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      May 11, 2021 | ISBN 9780593314692

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    • May 11, 2021 | ISBN 9780593502877

      558 Minutes

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    About There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love

    This kaleidoscopic portrait of an unprecedented time brings together some of our most treasured writers today—Edwidge Danticat, Layli Long Soldier, Monica Youn, Julia Alvarez, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor—to give voice to the unthinkable grief and hopeful possibilities born in an era of revolution and change.

    “A maelstrom of grief, anger, fear and confusion, with glimmers of gratitude and hope: a comprehensive emotional document of a moment.”—New York Times Book Review
     
    Now is an extraordinary time. Across the country, people are losing their loved ones, their livelihoods, their homes, and even their own lives to COVID-19. Despite the pandemic, countless protests erupted this summer over the recurring loss of Black lives. Reverberations of shock and outrage remain with us all. There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love captures and articulates all of these roiling sentiments unleashed by a profound national reckoning.

    Drawing its title from a powerful letter to her son by Kirsten West Savali, the book fans out from there, offering a rich and intimate view of the change we underwent. Composed of searing letters, essays, poems, reflections, and screeds, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love highlights the work of some of our most powerful and insightful writers who hail from across a range of backgrounds and from almost all fifty states. Among them, these writers have brought home four Pulitzers, two National Book Awards, a fistful of Whitings, and numerous citations in best American poetry, short story, and essay compilations. They are noisy with beauty, and their pieces ring louder and clearer than ever before.

    Galvanizing and lyrical, this is a deeply profound anthology of writing filled with pain and beauty, warmth and intimacy. A remarkable feat of empathy, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love offers solace in a time of swirling protest, change, and violence—reminding us of the human scale of the upheaval, and providing hope for a kinder future.

    About There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love

    This kaleidoscopic portrait of an unprecedented time brings together some of our most treasured writers today—Edwidge Danticat, Layli Long Soldier, Monica Youn, Julia Alvarez, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor—to give voice to the unthinkable grief and hopeful possibilities born in an era of revolution and change.

    “A maelstrom of grief, anger, fear and confusion, with glimmers of gratitude and hope: a comprehensive emotional document of a moment.”—New York Times Book Review
     
    Now is an extraordinary time. Across the country, people are losing their loved ones, their livelihoods, their homes, and even their own lives to COVID-19. Despite the pandemic, countless protests erupted this summer over the recurring loss of Black lives. Reverberations of shock and outrage remain with us all. There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love captures and articulates all of these roiling sentiments unleashed by a profound national reckoning.

    Drawing its title from a powerful letter to her son by Kirsten West Savali, the book fans out from there, offering a rich and intimate view of the change we underwent. Composed of searing letters, essays, poems, reflections, and screeds, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love highlights the work of some of our most powerful and insightful writers who hail from across a range of backgrounds and from almost all fifty states. Among them, these writers have brought home four Pulitzers, two National Book Awards, a fistful of Whitings, and numerous citations in best American poetry, short story, and essay compilations. They are noisy with beauty, and their pieces ring louder and clearer than ever before.

    Galvanizing and lyrical, this is a deeply profound anthology of writing filled with pain and beauty, warmth and intimacy. A remarkable feat of empathy, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love offers solace in a time of swirling protest, change, and violence—reminding us of the human scale of the upheaval, and providing hope for a kinder future.

    About There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love

    This kaleidoscopic portrait of an unprecedented time brings together some of our most treasured writers today—Edwidge Danticat, Layli Long Soldier, Monica Youn, Julia Alvarez, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor—to give voice to the unthinkable grief and hopeful possibilities born in an era of revolution and change.

    “A maelstrom of grief, anger, fear and confusion, with glimmers of gratitude and hope: a comprehensive emotional document of a moment.”—New York Times Book Review
     
    Now is an extraordinary time. Across the country, people are losing their loved ones, their livelihoods, their homes, and even their own lives to COVID-19. Despite the pandemic, countless protests erupted this summer over the recurring loss of Black lives. Reverberations of shock and outrage remain with us all. There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love captures and articulates all of these roiling sentiments unleashed by a profound national reckoning.

    Drawing its title from a powerful letter to her son by Kirsten West Savali, the book fans out from there, offering a rich and intimate view of the change we underwent. Composed of searing letters, essays, poems, reflections, and screeds, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love highlights the work of some of our most powerful and insightful writers who hail from across a range of backgrounds and from almost all fifty states. Among them, these writers have brought home four Pulitzers, two National Book Awards, a fistful of Whitings, and numerous citations in best American poetry, short story, and essay compilations. They are noisy with beauty, and their pieces ring louder and clearer than ever before.

    Galvanizing and lyrical, this is a deeply profound anthology of writing filled with pain and beauty, warmth and intimacy. A remarkable feat of empathy, There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love offers solace in a time of swirling protest, change, and violence—reminding us of the human scale of the upheaval, and providing hope for a kinder future.

    Listen to a sample from There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love

    Also by Tracy K. Smith

    To Free the Captives
    Ordinary Light
    See all books by Tracy K. Smith

    Also by Tracy K. Smith

    To Free the Captives
    Ordinary Light
    See all books by Tracy K. Smith

    Also by Tracy K. Smith

    To Free the Captives
    Ordinary Light
    See all books by Tracy K. Smith

    About Tracy K. Smith

    TRACY K. SMITH is a librettist, translator and the author of five acclaimed poetry collections, including Life on Mars, which was… More about Tracy K. Smith

    About John Freeman

    John Freeman is the editor of Freeman’s, a literary annual of new writing, and executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf…. More about John Freeman

    About Tracy K. Smith

    TRACY K. SMITH is a librettist, translator and the author of five acclaimed poetry collections, including Life on Mars, which was… More about Tracy K. Smith

    About John Freeman

    John Freeman is the editor of Freeman’s, a literary annual of new writing, and executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf…. More about John Freeman

    About Tracy K. Smith

    TRACY K. SMITH is a librettist, translator and the author of five acclaimed poetry collections, including Life on Mars, which was… More about Tracy K. Smith

    About John Freeman

    John Freeman is the editor of Freeman’s, a literary annual of new writing, and executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf…. More about John Freeman

    Product Details

    Category: Domestic Politics | 21st Century U.S. History

    Paperback | $16.95
    Published by Vintage
    May 11, 2021 | 320 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780593314692

    Category: Domestic Politics | 21st Century U.S. History

    Ebook | $13.99
    Published by Vintage
    May 11, 2021 | 320 Pages | ISBN 9780593314708

    Category: Domestic Politics | 21st Century U.S. History | Audiobooks

    Audiobook Download | $20.00
    Published by Random House Audio
    May 11, 2021 | 558 Minutes | ISBN 9780593502877

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    Praise

    “These testimonials from professors, poets, novelists and activists are centered on last summer’s protests against the police killings of Black people, but they tie connective threads between many countries and their crises…Together this book is a maelstrom of grief, anger, fear and confusion, with glimmers of gratitude and hope: a comprehensive emotional document of a moment.” —Sebastian Modak, The New York Times

    “Angry, rueful, and defiant, the impressive roster of award-winning writers and academics portrays a nation wracked by pain…. An eloquent and urgent collection.” —Kirkus, starred review

    “A potent and momentous in-the-moment response to an urgent and indelible time.” —Booklist

    “Written from the inner chambers of the heart, resonating with the questions that keep us up at night, and offering the recognition and generosity…. This book is a promise, a solace, a sounding of our cries for justice and need for love. It’s nothing short of essential.” —Garnette Cadogan, Literary Hub

    “Dynamic…captures the remarkable nature of the last year.” —Karla Strand, Ms. Magazine
     
    “Revelatory collection of heartfelt reflections…Forty treasured poets, scholars, and essayists document their experience of international racial reawakening…and consider them alongside their survival of dueling pandemics, namely COVID-19 and systemic racism.” —Oprah Magazine, “The Best Books to Pick Up This May”

    “This powerful, riveting collection gives us the community we have longed for during the past year, the connection we have missed. It tells us the truth; it tells us what it is like.” —The Minneapolis Star Tribune

    Table Of Contents

    Preface by Tracy K. Smith 

     
    Patricia Smith, Salutation in Search Of
    Randall Kenan, Learning from the Ghosts of the Civil War
    Edwidge Danticat, Mourning
    Su Hwang, Why the Rebellion Had to Happen Here
    Michael Kleber-Diggs, On the Complex Flavors of Black Joy
    Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Letter from the Fault Lines of Midwestern Racism
    Layli Long Soldier, I Cannot Stop: A Response to the Murder of George Floyd
    Sofian Merabet, Be Safe Out There (And Other American Delusions, Rhetorical and Otherwise)
    Nyle Fort, I Hated That I Had to See Your Face Through Plexiglass
    Daniel Peña, Let These Protests Bring Light to America
    Claudia Castro Luna, Letter from a Seattle Protest
    Pitchaya Sudbanthad, Finding Justice in the Streets
    Indigo Moor, A Riotous Anodyne
    Tracy K. Smith, A Letter to Black America
    Joshua Bennett, Where Is Black Life Lived?
    Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, On the Endless Mourning of the Present
    Ali Black, On Protest, Laughter, and Finding Breath
    Gregory Pardlo, Letter to Juneteenth
    Major Jackson, Letter from Burlington
    James Noël, Black Prayer
    Dawn Lundy Martin, Sense
    Idrissa Simmonds-Nastili, Black Motherhood in Sleepless Times
    Cynthia Tucker, Letter to a Mother Who Survived and Thrived
    Jasmon Drain, “Maybe” (Letter to a Daughter Who Will Wear Two Masks)
    Camille T. Dungy, This’ll Hurt Me More
    Ross Gay, Have I Ever Told You All the Courts I’ve Loved
    Samiya Bashir, Letter from Exile: Finding Home in a Pandemic
    Héctor Tobar, A Generational Uprising
    Oscar Villalon, When the Shadow Is Looming
    Manuel Muñoz, From Plagues to Protests to Wildfires
    Craig Santos Perez, Postcards from a Quarantined Paradise
    Julia Alvarez, Past, Present, Yet to Come
    Nikky Finney, Letter to John Robert Lewis
    Reginald Dwayne Betts, Kamala Harris, Mass Incarceration, and Me
    Lilly Wachowski, Refuse Fascism, at the Ballot Box and in the Street
    Monica Youn, Why I’m Getting Out of the Boiler Room This Election
    Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Voting Trump Out Is Not Enough
    Francisco Goldman, The Fall of Trump: On Presidents, Dictators, and Life After a Regime
    Sasha LaPointe, Thunder Song
    Kirsten West Savali, On Motherhood and Ancestral Resistance

     
    Contributor Bios

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