"This is an absolute powerhouse of a book, and a new pinnacle for Chinaka Hodge. . . . She deserves a wide audience, an attentive audience, an audience that wants to be astounded."-Dave Eggers, author of The Circle
Chinaka Hodge came of age along with hip-hop-and its influence on her suitors became inextricable from their personal interactions. Form blends with content in
Dated Emcees as she examines her love life through the lens of hip-hop's best known orators, characters, archetypes and songs, creating a new and inventive narrative about the music that shaped the craggy heart of a young woman poet, just as it also changed the global landscape of pop.
"In the old tellings hip-hop was a woman, a certain kind-one needing, even begging to be saved. In
Dated Emcees, Chinaka Hodge gives her a voice and she tells of her loves and desires, her traumas and pains in words as hard, as lit, as loving, cunning, cutting, ecstatic, as tender and devastating as her big world requires. This is poetry that, in its infinite power and intimate grace, will still turn in your mind long after the music is over."-
Jeff Chang, author of
Who We Be: A Cultural History of Race in Post-Civil Rights America
"Hodge writes with an unpredictable, rare honesty. This collection quietly and simply illustrates love in a complicated world."-
Donald Glover AKA Childish Gambino
"Chinaka Hodge is hands down, unequivocally, my favorite writer of words. All day. Every day. . . . These are poems to read every day. To make mantras from. They are the best poems you've ever read."
-
Daveed Diggs, star of
Hamilton
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