No Bedtime Stories of Soil

In his debut, No Bedtime Stories of Soil, Landon Smith brings to the page what

The Last Poets delivered to the stage. He writes with the prescience of Amiri

Baraka as he explores polyrhythmic political themes with messages in his

poetry akin to essays by James Baldwin, searing truths that force America to

take a long hard look at herself. A reckoning. A eulogy. The last sermon on a

crumbling mount. Smith's voice is the fire we need this time. In "Ode to Kalief ",

he writes "I hear you in the silence sometimes/The empty space between what

your life should have been and what it became in the hollow space you were

left to erode," signaling his collective hearing of the violent silencing of Black

atrocities in histories past, present and approaching. Smith's voice is the clarion

call for these shifted and shifting times-a beacon for what needs our most

urgent attention. This book is the one we need right now. Primed for the kairos

moment. The manual for next.

-adrienne danyelle oliver, author, the body has memories and collective madness