If you’ve visited the homepage of my website, this might look quite familiar.
January 22nd, 2024 marked the release of my latest poetry book, (No) I am (not) okay. The chapbook collection centers its dialogue on suicide and ideations, mental health, along with commentary on religion, race, and gender, and how these structures further cloud the waters of the mind. In my opinion, it is some of my punchiest, most powerful work to date.
Prompted by my desire to expand the scope and scale of my readership, along with hopefully garnering acclaim and a few extra dollars here and there, I chose to submit the collection to the 2024 Reader Views Literary Awards. Each submission comes with a book review as a part of the selection (and presumably scoring) process. I’m still a little unclear on how it works, as it’s my first time hearing of the awards, as well as submitting.
I wanted to share the review itself with you, especially as there are folks coming across myself, my work, my site, and blog all for the first time. While the full review is imbedded in this post, I want to share a notable quote that I think really shines a light on the project.
While short in nature, each entry in this compilation provokes and lures readers into looking beyond the words. Soak in the feelings, the darkness, the pain that many of these poems incite while reminding us to look beyond the thoughts, through the anguish and into the light.
You can get your hands on a copy of (No) I am (not) okay by visiting your local library or purchasing it through one of the following distribution retailers. This is by no means a comprehensive list.
If you would like to leave a review, here are the links to the Goodreads and StoryGraph pages respectively.
For the month of February, please expect an uptick in blog posts as I will be using that time to celebrate all of my books that were released during the month. Additionally, I will be using this time to direct your attention to other black authors and writers you may not have heard of previously.
Dre Hill 