Something went wrong
Please try again
Abracadabra, Sunshine
Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
Couldn't load pickup availability
- Format:
-
20 July 2021

Abracadabra, Sunshine is a series of ever-turning letters written to lovers, friends, and family as a testament to human perseverance and to art-making as a continuous defiance against the often overwhelming complexities and hardships of existence. Darting from the Czech Republic to the Andromeda Galaxy, from the films of Godard to the tales of the Brothers Grimm and the Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang, these poems foreground our animal need for love and connection against the background of our historical obsession with destruction. By turns dour and deeply hopeful, Booth’s poems extol the communal and healing powers of vulnerability and love.
POETRY / American / African American, POETRY / Subjects & Themes / Death, Grief, Loss, POETRY / Subjects & Themes / Places
"Witchy in its uncanny imagery, seering, and searing, Dexter Booth’s Abracadabra, Sunshine is an intricately woven spell, a ‘mating of letters’ with ‘the magic of anatomy.’ This book’s—this body’s—beauty, exactitude, and unflinching witness—haunt, as ‘some truths burn like houses and the people who run into them.’ Here, lyric utterance as address and artifact takes shape through a kaleidoscope of returning phrases, images, and narratives: Booth’s is lyricism as chrysalis." —Shira Dentz, author of Sisyphusina
"Mysterious, lovely, and written with sensitivity and craftsmanship, Dexter L. Booth’s second book is about what it means to care for one another in a world where ‘sorrow is often camouflaged by the body.’ Booth’s genius is that he is able, through perfectly constructed images of imaginative depth, to relay a pervasive sense of compassion, clarity, and awe." —Sandra Simonds, author of Atopia
"Booth is a storyteller with elegant metaphors and references to mythology and the natural world, but what is most distinctive about his poetry is the way he juxtaposes seemingly unrelated images and events, while 'attempting / to form an argument.'” —Poetry Foundation
"Dexter L. Booth's Abracadabra, Sunshine is one of the year's best poetry collections." —Bustle