Anodyne

Author: Khadijah Queen

Publisher: Tin House (2020)

The poems that make up Anodyne consider the small moments that enrapture us alongside the daily threats of cataclysm. Formally dynamic and searingly personal, Anodyne asks us to recognize the echoes of history that litter the landscape of our bodies as we navigate a complex terrain of survival and longing. With an intimate and multivocal dexterity, these poems acknowledge the simultaneous existence of joy and devastation, knowledge and ignorance, grief and love, endurance and failure―all of the contrast and serendipity that comes with the experience of being human. If the body is a world, or a metaphor for the world, for what disappears and what remains, for what we feel and what we cover up, then how do we balance fate and choice, pleasure and pain? Through a combination of formal lyrics, delicate experiments, sharp rants, musical litany, and moments of wit that uplift and unsettle, Queen’s poems show us the terrible consequences and stunning miracles of how we choose to live.

“Anodyne captivates with poignant, resilient poems; ones that face toughness with lucidity: of losing family and facing landscapes full of ‘untended loveliness of the forsaken.’ All of which builds an affective and luminous sense of record, of observing and perceiving. . . . Queen’s commanding style: building the poetic edges that are laced with endeavors, hurdles, grace, and truth into an eye-wide and powerfully deep poetry collection.”

–Prageeta Sharma

“Anodyne is a study of form & cavedwell, feminism as foresight, and archives the articulation of black excellence & resilience. . . . Many (re)discoveries are assured with the preciseness of Queen’s poetic legend.”

–Mahogany L. Browne