poetics and politics at their finest by Herukhuti
Race. Resistance. Love. is a collection of poetry and spoken word expressing 30+ years of living, loving, and learning in the Black liberation movement, Black queer communities, and Black radical tradition. Presented through the themes of race, resistance, and love, this body of work challenges simplistic ideas about what these three words mean while calling readers to define and redefine them in their own lives.
Race. Resistance. Love. is a collection of poetry and spoken word expressing 30+ years of living, loving, and learning in the Black liberation movement, Black queer communities, and Black radical tradition. Presented through the themes of race, resistance, and love, this body of work challenges simplistic ideas about what these three words mean while calling readers to define and redefine them in their own lives.
“Herukhuti’s poetry arrives as a clarion call. Here is an unapologetic blackness firing into the day–21st century, persistent and badass. Listen to a voice heard on the subway, in a lover’s ear, in the streets, in the quiet of one’s self. Listen, and you will hear the sound of the knife’s serrated edge.”
– Alexis De Veaux, author of YABO
“Straight up Black consciousness before wokeness and critical race theory became buzzwords entering the psyches of those enslaved by whiteness, stupidity, and greed. These lyrical, long-distance javelin jabs pack an Ali punch with all the ferocity of the most agile Black Arts poets participating in raising consciousness like a Sisyphean boulder up the hill of American dumbassification. Herukhuti’s Race. Resistance. Love. tackles history, race and popular culture with passion, humor and the verve necessary to make us stop in our tracks and pay attention”
– Tony Medina, author of Death, With Occasional Smiling
“Herukhuti achieves an artful testimony of community and self while proclaiming an insistent otherness that pushes against historical and philosophical challenges. Between a comprehensive worldview of his own code-switching vernacular and dismantling an all too familiar American paradox, this affirmation of self insists upon anything but surface recognition. All you have to do is listen.”
– Carl Hancock Rux, author of The Baptism
“I have enthusiastically engaged Herukhuti, times too numerous to count, through conversation, collaboration, and his written work. Not once have I left one of our interactions without new insight, new learning, and a welcomed challenge to my own frame. This collection of poems is no exception. Definitely read it.”
– Robyn Ochs, bisexual+ activist and co-editor of Recognize: The Voices of Bisexual Men
“Herukhuti is a seer, a bridgemaker and a warrior who vigilantly notices the cusps between worlds. For decades, Herukhuti has opened portals and guided countless seekers through to their highest purpose and now he is offering his poems as portable ceremonies that will now travel beyond the vibrational range of his voice.”
– Alexis Pauline Gumbs, author of DUB: Finding Ceremony
“Poetry in the language of consent and shared process is a beautiful and magical offering. Through a sharing of words passionately spoken while breathless, Herukhuti has offered us insight into racial injustice, love, sexuality, and Black liberation. Enjoy this exploration of possibility and feel the seeds of joy planted.”
– Syrus Marcus Ware, assistant professor, School of the Arts, McMaster University and co-founder of Black Lives Matter-Canada
“Herukhuti takes us to the past, into the hull of a ship full of our people, and brings us back to the present, all the while predicting a future we dare to consider. Race. Resistance. Love. is time travel through the word.”
– K. Marshall Green, assistant professor, Williams College and director of communications, Brown Boi Project
“It can be so easy to get seduced by the millions of dollars made off Black bodies and culture and forget what has been sacrificed. That our art and creativity, in all its forms, first and foremost, is the way we have survived, lived, loved, past on our histories and magic; given shape and form to our tears and sorrow and lift to our joys but most importantly, it is the way we have insured that the generations that follow have the tools and audacity to resist. Race. Resistance. Love. is a codex for our time and for a time, not too long ago, the impact of which still reverberates today. Cured and perfected over time, the work is the Blues, Gospel, HipHop, Bee-Bop, Trip-Hop; a deep, deep House groove.”
– Ifadadefumi Fasnmi Fayemi, artist, educator, activist, healer
