We Were All Someone Else Yesterday

by Omar Holmon

Overview

Omar Holmon's debut book We Were All Someone Else Yesterday, is a book of poems and essays that are drenched in both sadness and unmistakable humor.

These works urgently embrace growth in the face of grief. After the loss of his mother, Holmon loses touch with reality until he re-learns how to live by immersing himself in popular culture.

Teeming with references that are palpable, and emotions that pull the heart, Holmon's debut poetry collection feels profoundly warm and longingly familiar.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781943735686
Publisher:	Button Poetry
Publication date:	05/12/2020
Series:	Button Poetry
Pages:	104
Sales rank:	689,428
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Omar Holmon is an Alumni poet of Rutgers University and has competed in slam poetry for numerous years with two final stage appearances at the National Poetry Slam. He has been featured on Button Poetry, Tedx, and a commercial for Laphroaig whiskey (we outchea). In 2014 Omar Holmon Co-founded the Black Nerd Problems website with William Evans.

Read an Excerpt

From "Precious Little Life":

I am twenty six
And writing a poem about the different names
given to describe a group of animals.
My teammate points out that
a group of elephants is called a memory.
Elephants have been known to die
and remain
standing
well after death
I am twenty six
and Mom is lying down in a hospital bed
Elephants will travel to where members of their heard
have died and mourn their loss
I am twenty six
and migrating to the hospital for two weeks
naïve to the inevitable
I've just turned twenty seven
and the loss of my mother

has become the elephant in the room
Migration becomes second nature to me now
I move out of our apartment,
I move in with a friend,

I can move everything but

on

Editorial Reviews

"Omar Holmon makes us laugh until we cry and then cry until we laugh again. In this candid collection, Holmon's poems use his distinct voice to jump off the page and make their demands be heard. With each poem, Holmon examines death, grief, and heartache; oscillating between conversational and confessional, Holman addresses pop culture and inner demons - and we get to watch." — Nicole Homer, Author of Pecking Order

"Through poems that run the heart down to sweetness with humor, grief, love and rage, Omar Holmon captures his performative electricity and thunders onto the page in this blessed debut. Laughing to tears becomes real ass tears so quick in these poems, Holmon's skill and wit makes it a dazzling, hard-fought, and wonderfully rocky collection" —Danez Smith, Author of Homie

"I have long been thankful for the way Omar Holmon is able to balance the tortuous nature of longstanding grief with the levity of humor. And I am most thankful for it in this book, where the spectre of loss haunts always with a loud and echoing laugh, propelling a reader towards brief solace. Anyone who has ever felt sad understands the truth that sadness is not just one thing. It has many faces, and those faces wear many masks. This work honors all of them." — Hanif Abdurraqib, Author of A Fortune for Your Disaster

From the Publisher