There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce

One of Oprah Magazine's Ten Best Books of 2017

“Some of the most brilliant and daring poetry published in recent years. From police violence to the Obamas to, well, Beyonc”

[A] brash, risque collection that explores what it means to be a black woman in contemporary American culture. Parker, whose first book won the Gatewood Prize, is as self-assured as the women who appear in these pages, including Queen Latifah, Nikki Giovanni and Michelle Obama. Cultural references, old songs and classic poems spark observations about feminism, sex and desire at a time when "There's far too many of me dying./ The present is not so different." . . . Each woman in this fierce collection wants to be seen for who she is, not what society wants her to be, and each demands respect. Washington Post This singular poetry collection is a dynamic meditation on the experience of, and societal narratives surrounding, contemporary black womanhood. . . . Ranging from orderly couplets to an itemized list titled after Jay Z's "99 Problems" to lines interrupted by gaping white space, these exquisite poems defy categorization. The New Yorker Parker's poems are the real thing. By turns lyrical and declarative, rich with striking details and unexpected images Poetry Review Full of soul, sass, vim and attitude . . Playful, angry, sexy and as accessible as it is acerbic. Tatler, Sebastian Shakespeare An excellent collection of poems Jon McGregor, New Statesman, Books of the Year 2017 e, this collection is not only visceral and beautiful but also full of wit, pop culture and political references. Elle magazine

Morgan Parker is the author of Magical Negro (Corsair 2019), There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce (Corsair 2017), and Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night (Switchback Books 2015). Her poetry and essays have been published and anthologized in numerous publications, including the Paris Review; The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop; Best American Poetry 2016; the New York Times; and the Nation. Parker is the recipient of a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, winner of a 2016 Pushcart Prize, and a Cave Canem graduate fellow. Find her online at morgan-parker.com and on Twitter at @morganapple.

One of Oprah Magazine's Ten Best Books of 2017 A TIME Magazine Best Paperback of 2017 Publishers Weekly 's Ten Best Poetry Collections of Spring A Most Anticipated book at Buzzfeed , NYLON and Bustle One of i-D's emerging female authors to read in 2017 ' Outstanding collection of poems. So much soul. So much intelligence in how Parker folds in cultural references and the experiences of black womanhood. Every poem will get its hooks into you. And of course, the poems about Beyonce are the greatest because Beyonce is our queen.' Roxane Gay 'I can and have read Morgan Parker's poems over and over . . . She writes history and pleasure and kitsch and abstraction, then vanishes like a god in about 13 inches.' Eileen Myles 'Morgan Parker has a mind like wildfire and these pages are lit. I can't recall being this enthralled, entertained, and made alert by a book in a very long time.' Jami Attenberg The only thing more beautiful than Beyonce is God, and God is a black woman sipping rose and drawing a lavender bath, texting her mom, belly-laughing in the therapist's office, feeling unloved, being on display, daring to survive. Morgan Parker stands at the intersections of vulnerability and performance, of desire and disgust, of tragedy and excellence. Unrelentingly feminist, tender, ruthless and sequinned, these poems are an altar to the complexities of black American womanhood in an age of non-indictments and deja vu, and a time of wars over bodies and power. These poems celebrate and mourn. They are a chorus chanting: You're gonna give us the love we need.

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