{"product_id":"tenderness","title":"Tenderness","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cem\u003eIn a country where violence and the threat of violence is a constant weather for queer Black people, where can the spirit rest?\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith lush language, the meditative poems in the Isabella Gardner Award-winning \u003ci\u003eTenderness\u003c\/i\u003e examine the fraught nature of intimacy in a nation poisoned by anti-Blackness and homophobia. From the bedroom to the dance floor, from the natural world to The Frick, from Florida to Mexico City, the poems range across interior and exterior landscapes. They look to movies, fine art, childhood memory, history, and mental health with melancholy, anger, and playfulness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEven amidst sorrow and pain, \u003ci\u003eTenderness\u003c\/i\u003e uplifts communal spaces as sites of resistance and healing, wonders at the restorative powers of art and erotic love, and celebrates the capaciousness of friendship.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eTenderness\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“This is a stunning collection for these challenging times when intimacy has escaped us but will, eventually, return. Let this book be your primer.” \u003cb\u003e—NPR's 2021 Poetry Preview\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Derrick Austin is to a blank page what Titian was to a white canvas. In both of their works, audiences will find an exemplary adroitness with portrait, landscape, and myth. \u003ci\u003eTenderness\u003c\/i\u003e, Austin’s second poetry collection, weaves a sinuous lyric that navigates both the physical and metaphysical surroundings of a traveler desirous of understanding, desirous of being understood. The reader senses a certain urgency in the question of how to find tenderness and connection in a world intent on the project of othering. Austin skillfully excavates the rhizomatic truth of belonging and the vulnerable places where God can be found—a touch, a glance, a history, a remembrance.” \u003cb\u003e—Airea D. Matthews\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“It's nice to know that poetry is still a place to go and find some \u003ci\u003eTenderness\u003c\/i\u003e, and Derrick Austin's gentle touch is filled with genuine compassion and those soft wounds of the heart that act as release. ‘A heaven wider than androgyny is sugar on my tongue.’ The world is not shut out but let in, writ in dew and dust, ecstatic invocations and quiet elegies, hurricanes and the calm just after. After all, tenderness is not only sweet. It is also the place where we recognize the threshold of pain. ‘There's a snowbank \/ of roses on the sidewalk \/ where America unmade me.’” \u003cb\u003e—D. A. Powell\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003eIs This or Is This True as Happiness\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen we finally make it, we sit on cold stones.\u003cbr\u003eThe river curling over and under our feet\u003cbr\u003eeven colder. His secret place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe air has that early fall smell, things beginning\u003cbr\u003eto rot, the wet soil nourishing itself.\u003cbr\u003eWe’re trespassing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnything could happen\u003cbr\u003eto me in this white ass town. I’m terrified\u003cbr\u003eif he knows that and terrified if he doesn’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy body is puffy, unremarkable.\u003cbr\u003eI’ve grown distant and sullen.\u003cbr\u003eA witch told me gin placates the dead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhose dead have I been trying to drown\u003cbr\u003edrinking my own elegy?\u003cbr\u003eHe asks if I’m happy, and I say yes. \u003ci\u003eSee how easy it is\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eto get here\u003c\/i\u003e, he says. \u003ci\u003eYes\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003cbr\u003eI say. \u003ci\u003eBut you have to take me back\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":39658153115819,"sku":"","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/Tenderness_CVR_Final_SM_RGB-min.jpg?v=1618858545","url":"https:\/\/shop.boaeditions.org\/products\/tenderness","provider":"Boa Editions","version":"1.0","type":"link"}