In his first full-length nonfiction work, poet and journalist Smith explores the legacy of slavery in the United States, and to do so he takes his readers on a tour of sorts, visiting nine physical monuments crucial to that history, like Jefferson's Monticello, the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, Angola Prison, New York City, and finally Senegal's Gorée Island. Each visit is packed with stories from both past and present, as Smith examines the site's history and explores what that means for us today. It's always dangerous to go into a book with sky-high expectations, as I did thanks to numerous rave reviews from trusted readers, but I needn't have feared: this is a stunner. I highly recommend the audiobook, narrated by the author.

In this superb collection, How the Word Is Passed author Smith turns his attention to family, fatherhood, and community care. The first entry “All at Once” establishes the tone for poems that capture the fullness of fatherhood, setting quotidian moments of joy alongside the existential fear and dread that are part of parenting—especially parenting Black children in our world. (“There is a funeral procession/in the morning and a wedding/in the afternoon. The river that/gives us water to drink is the/same one that might wash us away.”) Smith addresses gun violence, climate change, and raising Black sons—and also the detritus at the bottom of his double stroller, the sand on his baby’s feet, and (gulp) Zoom school. A standout, and not just for parents. For fans of Amanda Gorman’s Call Us What We Carry and Maggie Smith’s Good Bones.