Poet, performer, and scholar Joshua Bennett is the author of three collections of poetry- The Study of Human Life, Owed, and The Sobbing School; a book of criticism, Being Property Once Myself- Blackness and the End of Man; and a work of narrative nonfiction, Spoken Word- A Cultural History. He received his PhD in English from Princeton University, and is currently Professor of Literature and Distinguished Chair of the Humanities at MIT. His writing has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Paris Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. In 2021, he was the recipient of aGuggenheim Fellowship and aWhiting Award in Poetry and Nonfiction. He lives in Boston.
Praise for The Sobbing School:
“In his scintillating debut, Bennett raises a crucial question
about the writing of African-American experience: how can one
convey the enormity of black suffering without reducing black life
and expression to elegy? . . . At its heart, Bennett’s sharp
collection is an ode to family, friendship and culture that neither
pulls punches nor withholds sentiment.”
– Publishers Weekly
“Bennett is one of the most impressive voices in poetry today. .
.he is also quietly building a reputation as one the brightest
intellectual and political thinkers of a new generation.”
– Jesse McCarthy, Dissent Magazine
“'Who can be alive today/and not study grief,’ Joshua Bennett asks
in this arresting debut. Yet these poems are no study in grief.
Abounding in tenderness and rich with character, these are no
quaint lyrics. They leap into our lives, engaging, crackling with
wit and intelligence. It’s one of Bennett’s unique gifts—a
virtuosic kind of code switching—to deliver a civil tone of I’d
rather you didn’t, while we know what he means is, more
provocatively, I wish you would.”
– Gregory Pardlo
"At a moment in American culture punctuated to a heartbreaking
degree by acts of hatred, violence and disregard, I can think of
nothing we need to ponder and to sing of more than our shared grief
and our capacity not just for empathy but genuine love. Poetry is
critical to such an endeavor—and Joshua Bennett’s astounding,
dolorous, rejoicing voice is indispensable."
– Tracy K. Smith
"At the heart of Joshua Bennett’s debut collection lies grief, but
his poems also pay tribute to the human will to endure. There are
glimpses here of James Baldwin and Zora Neale Hurston where
Bennett’s syntactical dexterity and feeling for language meet the
rhythm and flow of dangerous music. His poems of identity are also
poems of imagery and invention, and they testify to poetry’s
endless mutability through story and song, lament and praise. The
Sobbing School is an essential book for our times."
—Eugene Gloria
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