The first published collection of poems by Baltimore-based artist Brandon Jeffrey Pennix II. The book explores the depths of personal/collective trauma and loss, where the specter of violence haunts the space of memory. Across these poems, Pennix’s framework is a wake-up call to look at the intersections of language, affect, and power, as we navigate subjectivity, experience, and agency.

As an embodiment of care politics, the collection discerns the interplay of emotion and resilience, and the author contends with the complexities of mental health and the precarity of existence in a space of radical affective critique.

The poems—and their typesetting—unfold as a site of embodied experience, where the material conditions of life become a locus of self-definition and agency. Here, Pennix grapples with the dialectics of lack and becoming, navigating the terrain of identity formation amidst the exigencies of social disparity.

about the author
Brandon Jeffrey Pennix II was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Baltimore, Maryland.

He is a writer, poet, performer, and works in window sales. His text-based works address personal, environment, identity, relational, and social struggles. Pennix’s practice positions itself as a way of speaking nearby those overlooked, misunderstood, and mistreated.