Dear Sly Stone

Author: Tobi Kassim

Publisher: Spiral Editions (2023)

"I think I'm ready to give up on America, but it only lets me go / incrementally. So I sigh a little more. I love Everyday People . . ."

What's in a paean, ode, or prayer—or, "How I'm supposed to dance in all this noise"—asks these letters to Sylvester Stewart aka Sly Stone, erratic political hero, flower child, utopian herald, the man who "perfected funk." By examining Stone's presence and absence in our world, one might reveal some of the most intimate public moments of loss, ennui, and riot. Ultimately revealed, too, is the one "runnin' away" from one's own personhood—or perhaps that's the echo back, trailed by the 8-bit crunch of the drum machine.