Refuse

by Julian Randall

Winner of the 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Prize

Set against the backdrop of the Obama presidency, Julian Randall's Refuse documents a young biracial man's journey through the mythos of Blackness, Latinidad, family, sexuality and a hostile American landscape.  Mapping the relationship between father and son caught in a lineage of grief and inherited Black trauma, Randall conjures reflections from mythical figures such as Icarus, Narcissus and the absent Frank Ocean.  Not merely a story of the wound but the salve, Refuse   is a poetry debut that accepts that every song must end before walking confidently into the next music
 

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT, Race, Adult

104 pages, Paperback

First published September 18, 2018

About the author

Julian Randall is a Living Queer Black poet from Chicago. He has received fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT, and The Watering Hole and was the 2015 National College Slam (CUPSI) Best Poet. Julian is the curator of Winter Tangerine Review’s Lineage of Mirrors. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as New York Times Magazine, The Georgia Review, and Sixth Finch and in the anthologies Portrait in Blues, Nepantla, and New Poetry from the Midwest. He is a candidate for his MFA in Poetry at Ole Miss. [amazon.com]

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection, with some poems exploring the relationship between father and son through mythological characters, and some reckoning with biracial identity and bisexuality in a culture that can't seem to grasp either. Reading the litany of poets who inspire him is not surprising as you can see their influence on his work, but he has his own voice. I watched some performances online too but none from this volume.

[Claire Binkley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The strange idea of Sisyphus seeing the caller ID lighting up made me like the whole of this collection of fifty-two poems, despite the vulgarity crusting up some of them. I mean, what was I expecting, picking up a book labeled by what you throw away?
You might want to be mentally cautious and strong as well, considering what he hints cardinals might represent. (I looked them up to be sure, and the scariest thing they might mean is an overweening sense of pride. Maybe I should be more charitable and like it better. But I just opened it up again to a homecoming game. Naaaah, I think three stars is enough.)

I see that twenty other reviewers really, REALLY liked this collection, but I just found it average, even as the winner of the 2017 Cave Canem poetry prize. (Beware the dog!)

If you want to see what Julian Randall wrote, please enjoy.

[Andy Oram · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary book from a very young poet. Readers can tell when a gift for graceful expression lies in an author's bones, and Randall fits the description. A simple idea such as DNA is described wonderfully (noting that race is a major theme of the book): "Beneath my skin I keep 23 versions of the same drowned map". Throughout we see a perfect meld of self-exploratory confession and poetically ambiguous language. The number of false steps in this book are so few I can practically count each one.

Randall's exploration of styles and formats--with a keen ear for irony, perhaps even satire--is also impressive. The pieces here include prose poetry ("I Think Everybody Has a Year They Never Really Leave"), a skin-crawling parody of an academic disciplinary letter, and simulated abstracts of research articles (we never see the articles themselves). Perhaps the annotated Lord's Prayer may be contrived, but candor reigns through most of the book. Even simple observations like a heavy rain are breathtakingly set into verse and a context: "it rained until every puddle was rabid."

Still young, the author relives in detail his attendance at a privileged, nearly all-white school ("we lived within the most temporary country"), a self-identified queer man who defied stereotypes by playing football. Many actual, physical wounds from abuse and football playing enter the scene. Relations with his parents and struggles with college are clearly very current with him, and he shares them with readers ("It took a precise sequence of sins to make me / and I am giving none of them back"). Other themes include failure and suicidal feelings, Randall's attempt to feel part of our country after Obama's election, and the cultural impact of Frank Ocean.

[Tristan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a bit late to the party on Refuse (by which I mean I should have bought a copy when he came to read at my college a couple years ago) but boy am I glad I finally got around to reading it. Randall's work straddles the line between experiment and revelation gorgeously, playing effectively and freely with form while alway being grounded in a poetic transformation of experience, feeling, sound, and movement. (I will say that there's a part of me that wants to know what joyful, ecstatic, poems look like as they are few and far between in this collection, but it draws you in well with its difficult material anyway.) The poems are smart but never precious, raw but never unfinished, just brimming with lyrical force. Knowing he studied with Amiee Nezhukumatathil and Nathalie Anderson, I think I can see their hands, but his voice is uniquely his own, singing and strong.

My favorite poems included all the poems entitled "Palinopsia," "Pregame Prayer with Complete Citations," "Icarus," "A Thousand Cardinals," "This Land is Where We Buried Everything that Came Before You: African American Hitory and Concepts of Ownership in Early Elementary Education," "The Spool Who Sat by the Once Bombed City: Psychological Explorations of Ancestral Memory," and "Portrait of My Father as Sysiphus." As might be clear just from the titles, these are intimate without seeming to place his pain on display--we are not permitted to be voyeurs, instead we are let in or not entirely on his terms. A brilliant book. Highly recommended.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems about identity, inheritance, race, family, and survival.

from A Thousand Cardinals: "my mother traded her tongue / and I sound as if I am only his son What sacrifice to say allegiance / to my small dark mouth and not be understood on purpose"

from Nearly 7 Years After the Fact a Boy Whose Nose I Nearly Broke Hits Me Up for Brunch: "When I say river I mean I cannot belong / to something I cannot drown in / I mean I resemble something / that also breaks bodies in defense / I mean sometimes being Biracial / is to have two half-filled glasses / & dies of thirst anyway"

from Coverage: "I play left tackle / my chest absorbs a parade of hands / I am good at being touched / in the name of protection / this waltz I do to say what little country is mine / I am too small to play at this kind of war / but I do what I have to to even the odds / My body belongs nowhere so I claim his / & his & his refer to them only by number"

[Brandon Amico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Randall’s voice reads as if shot out of a cannon, or a volcano; there’s no way you can ignore or forget these poems and the way they move, wading in the murky water of memory or trying to make it to shore amid the turbulent waves of growing up as a black boy in small-town America. Friday Night Lights America, an America that has a picture of what men should be in its mind and will enforce sticking to that mold.

I can’t get over how effective these poems are, how they sing with both clarity and effective abstraction:

“When he fell, he fell like a building, slowly and into himself until there is only the quiet where a window used to be.”

The way that image blooms, how you see two things separately and together, twined & pulsing, then settling into their own orbits again...stunning. And this kind of sublime craft is all over the poem of this excerpt, which is to say nothing of the emotions and ideas that fuel it. Wonderful stuff. Get this book.

[Becky Robison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the good fortune to work with Julian at the inaugural Tin House YA Fiction Workshop, so I was excited to read his book of poetry. I actually started reading this one in December; I usually only read one or two poems a night so that I can mull them over a bit. And Julian’s poems are well worth the mulling. They’re simultaneously tender and brutal, examining his biracial identity and the place of biracial identities in America, along with sexuality, depression, and other themes. I especially liked the poems that invoked Barack Obama—maybe because I also came of age during the Obama presidency. But I think it has more to do with the fact that he presents a much more nuanced look at life for Black men during the Obama presidency than we usually receive.

Please note that I originally published this review on my blog.

[Meaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very dense and powerful collection.
.
My favorites:
-"Biracial Ghazal: Why Everything Ends in Blood"
-"This Land Is Where We Buried Everything That Came Before You: African American History and Concepts of Ownership in Early Elementary Education"
-"I Think Everybody Has a Year They Never Really Leave"
-"Summer After"
-"A Poem about Trees That Is Not Actually a Poem about Trees"
-"Pregame Prayer with Complete Citations"
-"You Got McDonald's Money?"
-"Friday Night Lights #20"
-"The Space Between Skins Is Called a Wound"
-"Translation"
-"Narcissus"
-"My Father Watches Ferguson Vol. 1"
-"Portrait of My Father as Sisyphus"
-"Palinopsia" (all four)
-"Regrets"
-"Ghazal for the Suicidal Thought"
-"Obama Wants to Be Clear about His Legacy"

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the pleasure & privilege of listening to Julian Randall recite poetry from this book at Twice Sold Tales in Farmington, Maine. Reading the rest of the book to myself felt disingenuous compared to the breadth he gives his poetry with his own voice. These are deeply personal poems told with rich verse and they pay homage to many figures (Obama, Frank Ocean, Donald Glover). The images used to accompany such sad material are visceral and compelling to read. I enjoyed this book and would recommend to anyone who is a fan of free verse, slam poetry, or who needs to get out of their comfort zone in subject, author, and narrative.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled to get through this collection. I would just get some momentum going when I would hit a work that didn't resonate. Some of these poems really spoke to me and felt honest. Others seemed more academic and felt like filler. I do not write poetry and hate to criticize something so personal. I flew through Prelude to Bruise by Jones and for the first time understood why people love poetry. This was so close but the flat notes in an otherwise beautiful collection brought my rating down. I do plan to read other works by this very talented poet.

[Dana · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5! A lot of the poems I felt a bit lost in, the poems I liked most were the avant garde poems written in the footnotes of poems, or ones on pages 59, 61, and 66 where poems were reprised to reveal new meanings. Throughout reading it I could understand why this collection won the Cave Canem poetry prize, for me personally I wish it leaned more into the avant garde and obscure ways the author approached poetry. I felt the strongest poems were the more sparse ones. Overall a good collection.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read! I was unable to go to a reading of this at The University if Mississippi, but I wish I could’ve heard his poems read in his voice. I had to read this slowly to absorb the meaning of each one. Highly recommend!

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew Julian in college and had heard him perform some of his poems before. It's amazing to see the breadth and power of his language and experiences in this book.

[Cody Stetzel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fiery and fantastic. A very memorable holistic effort. I look forward to reading future books.

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these poems hit real hard and a lot of them have at least one or two lines that really get to you.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, I love this collection. Language. Forms. Story, in individual poems and across the whole. Compelling, beautiful, impressed and grateful for it all.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is stupid how good this was.

[jon jon moore palacios · Rating 5 out of 5]

GOAT

[Nia Ita · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a raw vulnerability behind Chicago poet Julian Randall’s poems that both cracked me open and reminded me that who I am is not for anyone else to define. Often writing from the in-between spaces, Randall grapples with the reality of being biracial and bisexual with skilled craftsmanship and creative structure and form. It is with good reason that acclaimed poet Danez Smith announces Randall as “a new and necessary voice in black poetics.”

Randall’s work is actively rooted against the historical push to erasure the narratives of underrepresented communities. He believes remembering is a form of resistance and sues the personal and the political to engrave a body of work that will not be forgotten.

Check out the Q&A I did with the author on my blog:
https://niaitathomas.com/2019/09/18/q...

[Jessica]

“I steady plot the course of history / by the lengths of presidencies / sundial dictating a shadow / All I can remember about time / is what man wanted me dead then”

—From poem “The Author Is Often Mistaken for Obama’s Long Lost Son”