What do you think?
Rate this book
Against Heaven: Poems
Winner of the Academy of American Poets First Book Award, selected by Claudia Rankine.
Kemi Alabi’s transcendent debut reimagines the poetic and cultural traditions from which it is born, troubling the waters of some of our country’s central and ordained fictions―those mythic politics of respectability, resilience, and redemption. Instead of turning to a salvation that has been forced upon them, Alabi turns to the body and the earth as sites of paradise defined by the pleasure and possibility of Black, queer fugitivity. Through tender love poems, righteous prayers, and vital provocations, we see the colonizers we carry within ourselves being laid to rest.
Against Heaven is a praise song made for the flames of a burning empire―a freedom dream that shapeshifts into boundless multiplicities for the wounds made in the name of White supremacy and its gods. Alabi has written an astonishing collection of magnificent range, commanding the full spectrum of the Black, queer spirit’s capacity for magic, love, and ferocity in service of healing―the highest power there is.
Kemi Alabi’s transcendent debut reimagines the poetic and cultural traditions from which it is born, troubling the waters of some of our country’s central and ordained fictions―those mythic politics of respectability, resilience, and redemption. Instead of turning to a salvation that has been forced upon them, Alabi turns to the body and the earth as sites of paradise defined by the pleasure and possibility of Black, queer fugitivity. Through tender love poems, righteous prayers, and vital provocations, we see the colonizers we carry within ourselves being laid to rest.
Against Heaven is a praise song made for the flames of a burning empire―a freedom dream that shapeshifts into boundless multiplicities for the wounds made in the name of White supremacy and its gods. Alabi has written an astonishing collection of magnificent range, commanding the full spectrum of the Black, queer spirit’s capacity for magic, love, and ferocity in service of healing―the highest power there is.
80 pages, Paperback
First published April 5, 2022
15 people are currently reading
409 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
February 11, 2023
A powerful debut.
September 8, 2022
Excerpts:
We feel safe in all the wrong places, most at home in flames.
(from “Theory of Plate Tectonics”)
—
(from “Love Letter from Pompeii”)
—
Heaven and hell
are the same empire
half-slipped, gasping,
clutching our hems.
Ungoverned by the lie,
with fists and flames,
we cleave.
(from “Against Heaven”)
We feel safe in all the wrong places, most at home in flames.
(from “Theory of Plate Tectonics”)
—
Would you call this love
or the death heat? If we must melt, can it be
from the inside out?
Can they find our bones
vined? My salt scorched into
your teeth?
(from “Love Letter from Pompeii”)
—
Heaven and hell
are the same empire
half-slipped, gasping,
clutching our hems.
Ungoverned by the lie,
with fists and flames,
we cleave.
(from “Against Heaven”)
July 18, 2022
yeah <3
April 8, 2022
Gorgeous debut!
“ : to taste hands are water and sugar and know they should return
: to make good practice of this melt
: to spill from the bath
: to unhinge your front door
: to feed your body to the falling sky
—from “free fucked”
“ : to taste hands are water and sugar and know they should return
: to make good practice of this melt
: to spill from the bath
: to unhinge your front door
: to feed your body to the falling sky
—from “free fucked”
January 29, 2023
reading playlist asmr but it’s ur little brother snoring while ur airpods charge . maybe i’m still moody .
March 16, 2024
A lot of these poems flew over my head, but I can definitely appreciate how intelligent many of them were. (Those golden shovel poems, for example, damn. Especially the double golden shovel poems, those absolutely blew my mind.)
October 13, 2022
Somehow Alabi manages to entangle subject matter equally dedicated to both the erotic and the underworld, two topics I rarely read articulated with such clarity of vision, and even less commonly, in conversation. The result is a whimsical, rich, and therefore heavy collection that speaks to contemporary black and queer identity, as well as what it means to redefine paradise on one's own terms.
I suspect some references went over my head as a straight white guy with a minimal religious background...nevertheless, I could feel the importance and detailed precision in these works. From the publisher: "Instead of turning to a salvation that has been forced upon them, Alabi turns to the body and the earth as sites of paradise defined by the pleasure and possibility of Black, queer fugitivity. Through tender love poems, righteous prayers, and vital provocations, we see the colonizers we carry within ourselves being laid to rest." ... I couldn't have said it better myself.
I suspect some references went over my head as a straight white guy with a minimal religious background...nevertheless, I could feel the importance and detailed precision in these works. From the publisher: "Instead of turning to a salvation that has been forced upon them, Alabi turns to the body and the earth as sites of paradise defined by the pleasure and possibility of Black, queer fugitivity. Through tender love poems, righteous prayers, and vital provocations, we see the colonizers we carry within ourselves being laid to rest." ... I couldn't have said it better myself.
November 24, 2022
Against Heaven by Kemi Alabi is an intricate building of self through rebellion, which is to say a rebellion against harmful institutions. What is the restrictive, punishing god to one who loves themselves fully and wholly? Where Western religion is sterile and imposing, Alabi creates a lush garden of care of queer community and safety. Here, there is no shame in desire or anger. Closed mouths are not fed, and here, Alabi's mouth is wide and echoing. Holy is everything they claim is not ("they" being white supremacist structures). Holy is Black, queer, genderfluid, tender, and all-encompassing. To be holy means to be love and be loved. To be holy means to be free.
July 27, 2022
This is apparently Alabi’s debut collection, and honestly, I’m super impressed with the collection they gave us. At its heart this is a simmering, angry collection but their way with words is astounding. Not all of these landed for me, and some I liked the titles better than the poems themselves, but honestly, again, for a first collection, you could do way worse. Will definitely be watching for their next collection.
Read
July 16, 2024This is definitely one I will revisit over time. There are so many turns of phrase, references to subcultures and personal history, philosophical elements and artistic flourishes for me to untangle, on top of understanding which elements are unique to the poem and which come from poetic exercises (such as the golden shovels and blackouts here which have their own source material to understand on top of the way Alabi arranges them). My tastes will often vary from the target market of a book but it's rare for me to enjoy something as much as this but also feel unequipped to really discuss it aside from describing the subjective personal experience of me reading it.
[An aside: My biggest obstacle to that deeper understanding is me. As a guy with ADHD my biology demands I mistake a noun for a verb halfway through a very ornate stanza, and then start over from the first line like a fruit fly in a vinegar trap retracing its futile steps. That has made it hard for me to pick up the tools needed to appreciate more complex poetry, beyond loving the texture and voice of it and at least perceiving that there are layers there that can't be easily faked. For example trying to figure out what the word "stays" is doing in the line "sweet flicker cracking into prance / stays portal door warmed ajar." The poem the line (and the word "stays") is a part of is expressing a kind of deeply communal and celebratory occultic rite, which maintains its power and meaning despite the fact that it's aimed inward rather than toward a foe too abstract and systemic for it to really have any permanent effect. I get that, and catch a glimpse of the symbolism behind it. But I lose my place at "stays" and have to reboot my reading of the poem. And that's fine, because this stuff deserves multiple reads anyway (I averaged three per poem but some like my favorite "black as: wound/portal" received more).]
In the meantime, the passion, the wide variance in forms and voices, and the reflection of contemporary issues onto the personal and vice-versa (which prevents them from either becoming mere polemic or being diluted), make the effort worth it.
[An aside: My biggest obstacle to that deeper understanding is me. As a guy with ADHD my biology demands I mistake a noun for a verb halfway through a very ornate stanza, and then start over from the first line like a fruit fly in a vinegar trap retracing its futile steps. That has made it hard for me to pick up the tools needed to appreciate more complex poetry, beyond loving the texture and voice of it and at least perceiving that there are layers there that can't be easily faked. For example trying to figure out what the word "stays" is doing in the line "sweet flicker cracking into prance / stays portal door warmed ajar." The poem the line (and the word "stays") is a part of is expressing a kind of deeply communal and celebratory occultic rite, which maintains its power and meaning despite the fact that it's aimed inward rather than toward a foe too abstract and systemic for it to really have any permanent effect. I get that, and catch a glimpse of the symbolism behind it. But I lose my place at "stays" and have to reboot my reading of the poem. And that's fine, because this stuff deserves multiple reads anyway (I averaged three per poem but some like my favorite "black as: wound/portal" received more).]
In the meantime, the passion, the wide variance in forms and voices, and the reflection of contemporary issues onto the personal and vice-versa (which prevents them from either becoming mere polemic or being diluted), make the effort worth it.
June 20, 2022
after reading this for the second time, i concluded i like this work, especially after attending Kemi's conversation with Poets.org. However, the logic evades me sometimes and the sonic techniques they use are quite repetitive--i wish they had discussed that more in their conversation. i also have a disdain for particular topics (i.e. being a charlestonian and constantly reading people's interpretations of the Charleston Nine event is incredibly traumatic and i really dislike non-Charlestonians speaking on it, if i'm going to be completely level, i think it's inappropriate. that said, i didn't read "catatonia mercy / or what i learned from mother" and, instead, heard them read it during their conversation and i did appreciate the conversation had and the carefulness they put into that discussion).
therefore, i think if this book wasn't gifted, i would not have read it so thoroughly and skipped those poems. this entire book is not for me but Kemi's poetry is well worth the read. really great turns, the sound is splendid, and the construction of the actual collection is robust due to it's non-linear telling and variation in form. loved the golden shovels and black-out poetry (though i think the black-out pages could have aesthetically been printed better).
therefore, i think if this book wasn't gifted, i would not have read it so thoroughly and skipped those poems. this entire book is not for me but Kemi's poetry is well worth the read. really great turns, the sound is splendid, and the construction of the actual collection is robust due to it's non-linear telling and variation in form. loved the golden shovels and black-out poetry (though i think the black-out pages could have aesthetically been printed better).
October 21, 2022
The ones I liked were some of my favorites but the rest were too descriptive and involved for me to get through (personal preference for poetry)
I love love the idea of it and the poems that hit really hit as someone who is past Christianity.
There’s a line that says “your booty a whole altar call”
“Stop circling garden gates for scraps when your body splits a harvest”
And this is one of my favorites
“So what
heaven? That kingdom wholed by a coy god’s touch? Where green and the river began? If
all-father tells it: first you slave and shiver and shuck and die and die for heaven’s
around-back gate to budge loose at the bent speck of you. Lies. No doors, no lines. Look right:
me and mine kissed alive—greening. Curl up and chime against us—the river’s born here.”
I love the idea that we, the little moments we create here are our own kind of heaven, we don’t need permission, we don’t need to bend over backwards, we don’t need to punish ourselves, heaven is already for us, by us.
I love love the idea of it and the poems that hit really hit as someone who is past Christianity.
There’s a line that says “your booty a whole altar call”
“Stop circling garden gates for scraps when your body splits a harvest”
And this is one of my favorites
“So what
heaven? That kingdom wholed by a coy god’s touch? Where green and the river began? If
all-father tells it: first you slave and shiver and shuck and die and die for heaven’s
around-back gate to budge loose at the bent speck of you. Lies. No doors, no lines. Look right:
me and mine kissed alive—greening. Curl up and chime against us—the river’s born here.”
I love the idea that we, the little moments we create here are our own kind of heaven, we don’t need permission, we don’t need to bend over backwards, we don’t need to punish ourselves, heaven is already for us, by us.
September 2, 2023
In every poem of this powerful collection you feel the struggle of a soul who fights against heaven (otherworldly escape and judgment with all the systems of worldly power it spawns) while still feeling the call of that heaven that exists here whenever we bump up against beauty or the human joy. You can hear the cadences of a church in these poems and they are filled with the vocative “O”. More than anything these poems are marked by an exuberance of language and rhythm that evokes that joy and, sometimes, that anger.
The sounds of these poems bristle and sparkle bumping up against syntax and meaning the way joy brushes against heaven. And the poems look unflinchingly at sex and pleasure, race and gender, and the challenge of creating an identity against the oppressive structures they create.
I’ve always been such a big fan of Alabi’s poetry, so I was thrilled to see this book come out. Re-reading it now, the words still work their magic, and I still hear these poems in their voice.
If you haven’t discovered this poet yet, you are in for a treat!
The sounds of these poems bristle and sparkle bumping up against syntax and meaning the way joy brushes against heaven. And the poems look unflinchingly at sex and pleasure, race and gender, and the challenge of creating an identity against the oppressive structures they create.
I’ve always been such a big fan of Alabi’s poetry, so I was thrilled to see this book come out. Re-reading it now, the words still work their magic, and I still hear these poems in their voice.
If you haven’t discovered this poet yet, you are in for a treat!
November 2, 2022
I was introduced to Alabi's poetry in a fellowship lecture that was about climate and ecology in art and creative writing. The poems that we read of theirs were intriguing enough that I wanted to read the whole debut collection. I have a pretty low threshold for traumatic content, and sometimes content about bodies, so I found poems that dealt with certain topics more challenging. I also don't know if I know how to read an entire poetry collection. It's so much shorter but also so much slower. I found myself reading one poem and thinking about it, and then putting the book down for a week or more, until I remembered I was in the middle of it and picked it up again. If I tried to read several poems back to back my eyes glazed over. I don't think this has to do with the poems themselves, however, because when I gave them my thought and attention, they sung. I especially loved "Excerpt from The Book of Oceans" and "You Must Believe in Spring."
May 19, 2022
Very good debut collection. More than with most poetry volumes, I found myself responding very differently to the voice and rhythms day to day. (I usually read a half dozen poems or so to cleanse my language palate before doing anything else.). I'm not sure whether that's a reaction to difference in poems of my own state on any given day. Anyway, the rhythms are definitely quirky in a good way and Alabi moves far beyond the truisms in negotiating a complex gender and racial and immigrant family identity.
Favorite poems: Against Heaven (p. 35)--the title recurs; Theory of Plate Tectonics.
Follow up with "No more white girls, or what I learned from Father"; "catatonia mercy/ or what I learned from mother; "prayer in child's pose"; "the oldest song': "The Lonely Dream in Fevers."
Favorite poems: Against Heaven (p. 35)--the title recurs; Theory of Plate Tectonics.
Follow up with "No more white girls, or what I learned from Father"; "catatonia mercy/ or what I learned from mother; "prayer in child's pose"; "the oldest song': "The Lonely Dream in Fevers."
January 17, 2024
Question 19 from "44 Questions to Ask While Bingeing" asks, "How many generation's removed from the land are you?"
This poetry collection is simply revolutionary. Alabi contorts our understanding of what poetry is and what it looks like to convey the depths of language and its immerse power. I have never read something quite so brilliant! Alabi bodly roots herself in the radical nature of Black love, community, and culture. In discussing the taboo, she creates new possibilities for existence. If you are a poetry lover or simply an admirer of language, this is definitely for you !
This poetry collection is simply revolutionary. Alabi contorts our understanding of what poetry is and what it looks like to convey the depths of language and its immerse power. I have never read something quite so brilliant! Alabi bodly roots herself in the radical nature of Black love, community, and culture. In discussing the taboo, she creates new possibilities for existence. If you are a poetry lover or simply an admirer of language, this is definitely for you !
April 20, 2022
I am pulling no wool when I say this is the best volume of poetry I have read in a decade. The writer's awards are much deserved. Each piece and the quilt of them sewn together in this book are warmth to a soul looking for connection and to not be alone in the fluctuating despair and hope this world creates.
April 9, 2022
For National Poetry Month, it’s a given to read poetry. I love the latest collection from the American Poets First Book Award. The variety of style makes each poem unique and a separate journey. I loved this body of work. It’s worth revisiting every year.
Read
June 20, 2022There's a couple gems in here and as a whole the project of the book piqued my interest. It's a quick read. Their style was a bit repetitive; most poems were constructed in a similar style, without much range, in short, sonically-interesting phrases.
January 7, 2023
This book wasn't bad by any means, just not my cup of tea. These poems, overall, are abstract and hard to grasp, for me at least. I enjoyed the unique use of language and creative forms--those aspects made the book feel fresh.
October 27, 2023
Many of the poems were a bit too abstract for me to understand, but the others were filled with emotion and power that I admire. I can sincerely say I never expected to see the word “twerk” in a poem, nonetheless more than one poem.
May 11, 2024
This book was amazing, and employed so many different poetry methods and forms in order to share its raw messages. From lists to blackout poems to words snaked across the page to pages divided in half to poems that were paragraphs, this book and the poems inside are well worth the read.
December 16, 2025
I really enjoy Kemi’s work! This is a phenomenal breakthrough collection that does a lot with form and structure and the repetition of certain titles to help build this cohesive narrative. It’s also a very queer and very black book and it’s great to see how those experiences spill onto the page.
February 23, 2022
Mayyyybe 2.5. Ridiculously inconsistent
April 17, 2022
Heaven and hell
are the same empire
half-slipped, gasping,
clutching our hems.
Ungoverned by the lie,
weith fiss and flames,
we cleave.
are the same empire
half-slipped, gasping,
clutching our hems.
Ungoverned by the lie,
weith fiss and flames,
we cleave.
September 27, 2022
this collection is a knife whose blade I will always need to divide me
December 9, 2022
Painfully good.
December 18, 2022
Bruh maybe I’ll need to pick this book up again later in life but I barely felt this. Barely.
December 29, 2022
Memorable collection with some poems I’ll definitely come back to
February 1, 2023
Rarely do I rate poetry highly, jusg because it's not typically my thing and yet I keep trying none the less.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews