Un-American
Poems shimmering with lyricism ask who can inherit a country?
2021 PEN Open Book Finalist
2021 NAACP Image Award Finalist, Poetry
2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, Longlist
Dancing between lyric and narrative, Hafizah Geter's debut collection moves readers through the fraught internal and external landscapes--linguistic, cultural, racial, familial--of those whose lives are shaped and transformed by immigration. The daughter of a Nigerian Muslim woman and a former Southern Baptist black man, Geter charts the history of a black family of mixed citizenships through poems imbued by migration, racism, queerness, loss, and the heartbreak of trying to feel at home in a country that does not recognize you. Through her mother's death and her father's illnesses, Geter weaves the natural world into the discourse of grief, human interactions, and socio-political discord. This collection thrums with authenticity and heart.
SAMPLE POEM
Testimony
for Tamir Rice, 2002-2014
Mr. President,
After they shot me they tackled my sister.
The sound of her knees hitting the sidewalk
made my stomach ache. It was a bad pain.
Like when you love someone
and they lie to you. Or that time Mikaela cried
all through science class and wouldn't tell anyone why.
This isn't even my first letter to you,
in the first one I told you about my room
and my favorite basketball team
and asked you to come visit me in Cleveland
or send your autograph. In the second one
I thanked you for your responsible citizenship.
I hope you are proud of me too.
Mom said you made being black beautiful again
but that was before someone killed Trayvon.
After that came a sadness so big it made everyone
look the same. It was a long time before we could
go outside again. Mr. President it took one whole day
for me to die and even though I'm twelve and not afraid of the dark
I didn't know there could be so much of it
or so many other boys here.
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"Hafizah Geter's Un-American reads like a high lyric conversation overheard. Poem after poem, the most ordinary of items--cups, cards, couches--get ratcheted up into their proper glory. In other words, Geter sees the world as a stage set for what she needs to tell her family but can't, what she needs to hear from her family but won't. And all of this is done with attention to what this one beautiful story says about the so-called American story."--Jericho Brown, author of The Tradition
"Hafizah Geter's Un-American chronicles the haunting legacies of brutal loss written in blood and memory across continents--'together, slowly domesticating / our suffering.' The poems' narrative clarity edges against exile, and in gorgeous language deliver a trenchant testimony and understanding."--Khadijah Queen, author of Anodyne
"Here is the history of this country in all its blood and complication, with all its promise and betrayal. These poems are an accounting, a testimony, a prayer--poems meant to quiet the animal inside us. A beautiful book."--Nick Flynn, author of I Will Destroy You
"This timely and powerful book speaks to the struggles on two nations, and to the grace of the invincible light of black life."--Rigoberto González
