Heed the Hollow: Poems

by Malcolm Tariq

Heed the Hollow introduces the work of Malcolm Tariq, whose poems explore the concept of “the bottom” across blackness, sexuality, and the American South. These lyrics of queer desire meet the voices of enslaved ancestors to reckon with a lineage of trauma that manifests as silence, pain, and haunting memories, but also as want and love. In bops, lyrics, and erasures, Heed the Hollow tells of a heritage anchored to the landscape of the coastal South, to seawalls shaped by forced labor, and to the people “marked into the bottom / of history where then now / we find no shadow of life.” From that shadow, the voices in these poems make their own brightness, reclaiming their histories from a language that evolved to exclude them. With an introduction by Chris Abani, Heed the Hollow exults in the spiritual and the physical, in its blackness and eroticism, and in the beauty of touch and music.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, LGBT

88 pages, Paperback

First published November 5, 2019

Reviews

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

This felt like it should have been two different collections, but there were definitely some high notes, especially regarding the historical details Tariq brings into his poems. I'll be looking out for further work from Tariq in the future.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal and lush, a welcomed new voice in poetry with this debut.

[Aolund · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book braids the historical with the present in a way that is Southern, painful, insightful, tender, sexy, uncomfortable, and beautiful. Tariq explores, calls out to, and gives voice to Black ancestors, “the afterlife of slavery,” and queer ways of finding strength and beauty when power is denied. Tariq’s lyric poems are his strength, with the prose poems providing important heft and content but lacking the sharp, breathtaking images and spell-like quality of the lyric poems. I loved the way this book demonstrates the presence and present of the past.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Let the record show: we still lurk / in branches your family trees denied us, / hanging in the balance. Blood- / thirsty leaves. Cataloged / I’m that way—our not names.”

-from poem “Index to the American Slave”

[Kent Winward · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 -- damn Goodreads and their all or none star policy, but I quibble. How do I as a old, straight white male review this book of poetry? By typing it out in the little box on Goodreads. The juxtaposition of black history and being a homosexual bottom was intriguing and an interesting read. My main complaint was that the "bottom" part won out over the history part more often than not. I was left feeling like the conflict between the two was still largely unexplored. The poems were about one or the other, but not so much about the obvious conflicts with slavery and sexual submission, race and sexual submission, male attitudes and sexual submission, and even in how we use the flesh of other people for our own pleasure.

The "Tabby" poem was superb and was the one piece where I felt like things were subtly tied together, but the poem itself while metaphorically brilliant left the sexual side more or less untouched. I guess my rating is more out of disappointment than anything else, there seemed to be so much more conflict that was left unexplored.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems about queerness, being Black in America (and the south), desire, love, and inheritance.

from Index to the American Slave: "Let the record show: we cannot / call our names without uttering yours, / the mess of your lives stuck between our teeth. // Let the record show: we still lurk / in branches your family tree denied us, / hanging in the balance. Blood- // thirsty leaves. Cataloged / in that way—our not names."

from Addendum: "They didn't tell us how history is never so much the past as it is a condition / that follows us, how already our minds were made to hull. Actually cotton. / I want to pull my mind away from it, but who would I be then with no history, / with no way of knowing the difference, the likeness between flesh and fiber."

[Nan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry is not supposed to be "political", but my favorite pieces in here are. They are the ones that wake me up and remind me of who I am -- a white, straight woman. "Cento in Which a Narrative Precedes a Lyric" is a prime example. Long and large, it hits you on the back of the head with a two by four. I would probably never hesitate to "steal" from a slave narrative to "make something beautiful". But Tariq answers, "This is a matter of ethics. It is a matter of unmaking meaning." Amen, poetry is not and never should be in the business of theft.

[The Nitaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

**SPOILERS AHEAD!!**

Title: Heed the Hollow
Author: Malcolm Tariq
ISBN: 978-1-64445-009-3
Cover: pretty
Page Count: 111

Overall Review:

This is one of the better poetry books written by a SGL man I've read as of late.

Tariq's poetic technique is unique and sings (when he wants it to). Topics of sexuality in the negro south are well handled.

For me it is a solid 3/5.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Modern but steeped in history, lyrical but grounded, these poems leave no tabby shell unturned in their exploration of the South and its relationship to blackness and queerness, now and then. Let them take you out to the water's edge, and show you something. Highly recommended!

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

a good first collection; not notably good, but a notch above average. I'd read another by Tariq.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cave Canem Poetry Prize winner Malcolm Tariq's poetry collection "Heed the Hollow" is one daredevil of an impressive achievement. The bold opener "Power Bottom" shocks with its forthrightness (and lets you know that Tariq is about to hold nothing back); his "Cento in Which the Narrative Precedes the Lyric" inventively confronts slavery's footprint on our national psyche. As for his "1 Yearning" -- drawn from Ralph Ginzburg’s 's horrific history "100 Years of Lynching" -- that 17-page epic may be the most effective erasure poem that I've ever come across. And if you get the chance to hear him read his work aloud, even better.

[tatiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️ felt beautiful & enjoyed some parts