Never Catch Me

by Darius Simpson

Overview

2023 Midwest Book Award Winner
2023 Next Generation Indie Book Awards finalist

Darius Simpson’s debut collection Never Catch Me centers on Black boyhood in the midwest and familial disintegration over time. Simpson pulls back the curtain, exposing the violence enacted against and upon, Black bodies, and yet, still, each poem is saturated in revolution and hope. Never Catch Me is the anthem necessary to organize a community that is committed to a better right now–one that can only be achieved with an intensity and action that goes far beyond the page.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781638340485
Publisher:	Button Poetry
Publication date:	10/25/2022
Series:	Button Poetry
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	269,340
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.25(d)

About the Author

Darius Simpson is a writer, educator, performer, and skilled living room dancer from Akron, Ohio. Much like the means of production, he believes poetry belongs to and with the masses. He aims to inspire those chills that make you frown and slightly twist up ya face in approval. Darius believes in the dissolution of the empire and the total liberation of Afrikans and all oppressed people by any means available. Free The People. Free The Land. Free All Political Prisoners.

Table of Contents

I.

We Don't Die 1

Seventy-Two Hours 2

Yea I Did It 4

Perhaps We Are Our Ancestors' Wildest Dreams 5

11:05 on a Saturday Night and the Dancefloor Is Galling Me by My Government Name 6

I Don't Know What Y'all Came to Do 8

In Detroit a Cluster of Black Folks Is Called a Hustle 9

And It Don't Stop 11

Tiran 13

Ma'am I'm Sorry to Tell You Your Son Is D- 15

Word Bank or My Mother's First Words Upon Realizing I Am Not Asleep in My Bed 16

Word Problems 17

Impact: A Run-On Question 18

If I'm Caught Between A Badge and A Hard Place Three Hours after the Street Lights Turn On 19

On a Day I Pass Another 100-Year-Old White Man A Black Man Is Pronounced Dead at 54 20

Last Call 21

I Think Heaven Is Actually Right Here Stevie 23

II.

How We Survive the End 27

What Don't Kill You 29

Pleading with Scraped Knuckles 30

I Left the Church in Search of God 32

Ekphrasis of the Black Boy Being Dunked On in Front of a Confederate Statue 34

Ode to Powerline 37

Dreamgirls Soundtrack Track 5 38

Loaded 40

Cain 41

What Is There to Do in Akron, OH? 42

Shatter 43

Said the Mirror to Its Reflection 44

Black & Mild 45

My Older Brother Apologizes 47

Early 2000's Fashion Was A Confusing Time for All of Us 49

III.

Glossary of Terms 53

Etymology of "Fuck 12" 56

10:33 Outside Your Local Precinct 57

Worksheet #1 58

What We Doin Here? 59

The Role of the Artist 60

A Poem in Which We Shoot Back 61

In a Past Life I Was Choked by a Pig and All My Neighbors Watched It Happen Instead of Jumping in 63

The Most Important Ballot of Our Lifetime Again 65

Capitol Capital 66

This Last Election Was a Riot 67

Irrefutable Proof I Knew the President Personally 68

Up Above My Head 69

Ok So Maybe the Rally Won't Get Us Free 70

A Million Men March into a Wildfire 71

Stop the Violence! 72

You Know He Shot at the Police Right? 73

Nonprofit Equity Statement Walks Into a Summer 2020 Writing Workshop 75

There's Fires to Start 77

Untitled (For Lack of Free Time) 78

Worksheet #2 79

I Live Just East of a Contradiction 80

Objective Facts 82

Resources 89

Notes/Previously Published 92

Acknowledgements 95

About the Author 99