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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
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OWED

Joshua Bennett

From "one of the most impressive voices in poetry today" (Dissent Magazine) comes a new collection that shines a light on forgotten or obscured parts of the past in order to reconstruct a deeper, truer version of the present.
Bennett's new collection, OWED, is a book with celebration at its center. Its primary concern is how we might mend the relationship between ourselves and the people, spaces, and objects we have been taught to think of as insignificant, as fundamentally unworthy of study, reflection, attention, or care.

Spanning the spectrum of genre and form - from elegy and ode to origin myth - these poems elaborate an aesthetics of repair. What's more, they ask that we turn to the songs and sites of the historically denigrated so that we might uncover a new way of being in the world together, one wherein we can truthfully reckon with the brutality of the past, and thus imagine the possibilities of our shared, unpredictable present, anew.

Poet, performer, and scholar Joshua Bennett is the author of The Sobbing School. He received his Ph.D. in English from Princeton University, and is currently Mellon Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. His writing has been published in the New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. His book Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man, will be published by the Harvard University Press in February 2020. His first work of narrative nonfiction, Spoken Word: A Cultural History, is forthcoming from Knopf.
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Published 2020-09-01 by Penguin Books

Comments

We're lucky to have Joshua Bennett's Owed at this hour in America. The resonances of 'ode' and 'owed' underscore his tremendous acts of invention amid 'an ever-expanding grand Black Epilogue.' Lyrical and political fibers are woven through narratives as clear and idiosyncratic as the plastic on your grandmother's couch. Owed fights for the 'ground where the children can play & come home whole.' Bennett swings with song and exaltation; he swings with resistance and defense. I'm glad to have his amazing collection right now. I will be glad to have it tomorrow.

In a time when many confront and protest the racism prevalent in our society, Bennett's new book is vital. Recommended for all collections. Read more...

Interview - The Power Of Poetry: Why It Matters And How It's Evolving Read more...

Stunning... [Bennett's] astonishing poems... explore the past, childhood, family relationships, identity, and memory among many other themes, all expertly rendered through a mixture of forms.

Bennett captures the beauty of what really matters in life - the memories, youth sports, family traditions and little moments that many of us take for granted - in his new book of poems, Owed, which couldn't have been more timely.

Themes of praise and debt pervade this rhapsodic, rigorous poetry collection, which pays homage to everyday Black experience in the U.S. . Bennett conjures a spirit of kinship that, illuminated by redolent imagery, borders on mythic, and boldly stakes claim to 'some living, future / English, & everyone in it / is immortal.' Read more...

Joshua Bennett told Inside Edition Digital poetry coming from the mind of a Black poet does not have to solely tell stories of children born into trauma. He also does not want to ignore the vulnerabilities that Black children uniquely face... Read more...

Celebrating What Defines Us: The Millions Interviews Joshua Bennett... Read more...

Owed is an indictment of the state even as it is an ode to the ongoingness of Black imagination. Here, a single moment shimmers with a million resonances of attention. So the world is loved this much. And what has been taken has been taken this much. Bennett insists on repair even as he mourns what is utterly irreparable. This book is part of a breathful, bodied fight for Black life. I am emboldened and sharpened by Bennett's genius and by his love made plain across each of these shimmering pages.

Q & A: Ten Questions for Joshua Bennett Read more...

Joshua Bennett on the Fullness of Black Life in a Time of Siege The Author of Owed Talks to Jesse McCarthy About BLM, Black Comedy, Teaching and More... Read more...

Powerful... With their joy, pain, and fierce descriptions of Black life in America, Bennett's poems are more necessary than ever. Read more...

NPR All Things Considered interview, which aired last night! (Sept. 23, 2020) Read more...

Joshua Bennett discussed his new poetry collection, OWED, with the Poetry Society of America. Read more...

Penguin Poets is thrilled to share that Joshua Bennettauthor of OWED and THE SOBBING SCHOOLis the recipient of the 2021 Whiting Award in Poetry, Nonfiction! Read more...

LitHub named the collection one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2020: "Joshua Bennett can do it all. A scholar, teacher, poet, critic, and performer, he'll have two books out in 2020 - the first of which, May's Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man... and the second of which is his second collection of poetry, Owed, which is described as "a book with celebration at its center," is sure to be an equally essential text." Read more...