It’s The Stacks Book Club day and writer Hala Alyan is back to discuss this month’s pick, The January Children by Safia Elhillo. It is an award-winning poetry collection by the Sudanese-American poet Safia Elhillo. We examine the prevailing themes of displacement and duality, the urgency with which a poet writes, and we ask, how should one judge poetry?
Be sure to listen to the end of today’s episode to find out what our May book club pick will be.
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Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon
- The January Children by Safia Elhillo
- The Moon that Turns You Back by Hala Alyan
- Abdel Halim Hafez
- “On Black and Arab Identities: Safia Elhillo’s Arab American Book Awards Acceptance Speech” (Ainehi Edoro, Brittle Paper)
- “Ep. 313 Auditioning for Empathy with Hala Alyan” (The Stacks)
- Girls That Never Die by Safia Elhillo
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- The African Poetry Book Series
- 2024 LA Times Book Prize
- “Ep. 222 Living in Between with Elamin Abdelmahmoud” (The Stacks)
- Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud
- Al Green
- “Soul singer Al Green is attacked in his own bathtub” (History.com)
- Marvin Gaye
- Killing of Marvin Gaye
- “Marvin Gaye Sings the United States National Anthem at the 1983 NBA Allstar Game” (Youtube)
- Nate Marshall
- José Olivarez
- The Unclaimed by Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans
- Hierarchy of death
- Diana, Princess of Wales
- Killing of Latasha Harlins
- The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins by Brenda Stevenson
- George Floyd
- Dar Al Naim
- Dar Al Naim on Instagram
- Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay
- “Ep. 264 Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay — The Stacks Book Club (Clint Smith)” (The Stacks)
- No Name in the Street by James Baldwin
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