Good Dress

Through lush imagery, slick syntax, elegant diction, and play with form, Brittany Rogers is a generous and keenly observant poet. Good Dress knows Detroit and all its migrations: the East Sidedness of its own language; its Down South tell-it-like-it-is because I love you and mean it. Night deer in the pastoral of empty house lots, the heaven of a corner deli that knows you by your name. These poems force us to consider what we mean when we say home, and who gets to tell that story. Exploring gentrification, queer eroticism, motherhood, and church-girl-blues, Brittany Rogers makes it her business to insist we look at it all-- the catastrophe and the beauty--and leave none of its wisdom behind. This self-assured, dazzling debut has a story to tell. And says it with its chest, its whole mouth.--Aricka Foreman, author of Salt Body Shimmer
An exuberant celebration of Black abundance. . . . there's nary a reader that will read Brittany's poetry and remain untouched.-- "Publishers Weekly"
A once-in-a-generation debut collection. . . . Brittany Rogers is already a legend and the first of a new kind of poet for whom truth is a posture of both the line and the mouth. A poet come to wake us up for good.--Angel Nafis, author of BlackGirl Mansion
Rogers' electric debut enfolds us in what we didn't know we needed to understand about how we can move in the world, to dance and roller skate and cry, to imagine ourselves adorned passionately with life.--Khadijah Queen, author of Anodyne
Audacious, grounded, and generous.--Donika Kelly, author of The Renunciations
Includes place writing on Detroit and a challenging of heteronormativity in its contemplations of pleasure and intimacy. The poems tackle class, home, and Black womanhood.-- "Autostraddle, A Most Anticipated Queer Book of Fall"
Fierce.-- "Verse Curious"
Captures the spirit of resilience and singularity through powerfully visceral verse.--Airea D. Matthews, author of Bread and Circus
Brace yourself for what Rogers pulls off in this collection.--Tommye Blount, author of Fantasia for the Man in Blue
What does it mean to want, to desire nice things, when you have been told poverty will not allow you softness and ease? Rogers's work, unflinching in its precision, confronts and refuses a simple answer to this question.-- "Poetry Northwest"
Spectacular. . . . Amazing. . . . An elixir. . . . In every poem there are layers of phrasing and scene creation that astound.... Brittany Rogers better know this book is super fine. Purple dress fine. Lil' Kim and Aaliyah fine. And exactly on time.-- "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette"
This is a collection about being Black and audacious and beautiful and how all these things can be one in the same. It is also about the complicated experience of being a Black girl in a world that seeks to disconnect us from our wonder, our desire and, ultimately, our selves.-- "Reckon"