Golden Ax
  • Published: 18 October 2022
  • ISBN: 9780143137139
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 80
  • RRP: $37.99
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Golden Ax

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“Outstanding . . . the poetry in these pages is intelligent, lyrical, as invested in the past as the present and future with witty nods to pop culture.” —Roxane Gay, author of Hunger
 
“I’ve never read anything like it. Truly a sublime experience.” —Jason Reynolds, author of Ain’t Burned All the Bright
A groundbreaking collection about Afropioneerism past and present from Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and New York Times bestselling author Rio Cortez

Longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award for Poetry
Longlisted for the 2023 PEN Open Book Award
Finalist for the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award

“Outstanding . . . the poetry in these pages is intelligent, lyrical, as invested in the past as the present and future with witty nods to pop culture.” —Roxane Gay, author of Hunger
 
“I’ve never read anything like it. Truly a sublime experience.” —Jason Reynolds, author of Ain’t Burned All the Bright
A groundbreaking collection about Afropioneerism past and present from Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and New York Times bestselling author Rio Cortez

From a visionary writer praised for her captivating work on Black history and experience comes a poetry collection exploring personal, political, and artistic frontiers, journeying from her family's history as "Afropioneers" in the American West to shimmering glimpses of transcendent, liberated futures. 
 
In poems that range from wry, tongue-in-cheek observations about contemporary life to more nuanced meditations on her ancestors—some of the earliest Black pioneers to settle in the western United States after Reconstruction—Golden Ax invites readers to re-imagine the West, Black womanhood, and the legacies that shape and sustain the pursuit of freedom.
  • Published: 18 October 2022
  • ISBN: 9780143137139
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 80
  • RRP: $37.99
Categories:
Share…

Praise for Golden Ax

Advance praise for Golden Ax:

"Cortez maps untrodden historical and speculative terrain in poems of stunning breadth and intimacy in this exquisite debut . . . reflecting on class, race, and womanhood with wit and lyrical subtlety . . . Unflinching and generous, this bold collection opens new vistas in contemporary Black poetry.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) 

“I love this book—for its sensuous, chiseled language; for all the trees and plants (aster, bluestem, birchwood, hibiscus); for its weird and brainy sense of humor; for its palpable yearning and need; and for its entangled, complicated, unfixable, and unfixing blackness. Its unsettled and unsettling blackness. Which is really just to say: its blackness. I am so grateful for this book, and this voice, and this heart, in the world.” —Ross Gay, author of The Book of Delights

“A game changer. Cortez is without a doubt one of the most brilliant writers I've ever read . . . This book will be talked about for decades—it's canon. Cortez is a genius . . . This book shattered me . . . Golden Ax is a seismic achievement . . . a cosmic-level work of art.” —Brenda Shaughnessy, author of The Octopus Museum