Come Kingdom

Author: Derrick Harriell

Publisher: LSU Press (2022)

Derrick Harriell’s new book, Come Kingdom, chronicles a Black man’s journey toward an ever-elusive American Dream with poems anchored in the trenches of personal crossroads ranging from child conception to substance abuse and racism. The collection follows a male speaker as he and his partner family plan, hoping to provide their son with a sibling. Their troubles burst through in bold poems that incorporate both medical and mental hurdles. At the same time, it pays homage to Black musical icons such as Marvin Gaye, Whitney Houston, Tupac Shakur, and Nipsey Hussle.

With spirited vulnerability and gritty lyricism, Harriell reveals the stakes and hauntings of relentless generational traumas. A tour de force of outcry and courage, Come Kingdom confronts shifting social, political, and musical climates. On a more intimate level, it also follows a couple’s desperate attempts to become parents again.

“What a book. It hurts, it redeems, it does not blink.”

–Catherine Pierce

“In Come Kingdom, Derrick Harriell constructs a pulsating and provocative world of flesh, memory, and fantasy, where the celestial and the purgatorial come face to face.”

–Patrick Rosal

“A mind-blowing experience—a tender reflection of one poet’s life laid bare in the public sphere.”

–Randall Horton

“Rich, dynamic, full of invention and wordplay, Harriell’s poetry documents those kingdoms we are given, and the kingdoms we create.”

–January Gill O’Neil