Mystic Turf

MYSTIC TURF is the poetry that bears your name, like the very earth you walk upon and christen with your strides. In these poems that lyrically insinuate in brief yet lasting notes, Quraysh Ali Lansana tags the nervous streets, American foothills, domestic rooms and memories that constitute our bluesy soul, and asks, why can’t we speak the grace we all avoid? We have no slipperiness here, just the solid walkings and meditations of a man poised in his life to speak the grace he’s earned and to speak his journey with enormous dignity and artfulness.—Major Jackson

In this reflective, starkly personal book, this daring exploration of memories both melancholy and revelatory, Quraysh Ali Lansana has shattered that insistent barrier that often separates us from our own histories. These melodic, unflinching vignettes chronicle a search for a definitive root, and the poet’s journey mesmerizes, entertains, surprises and inspires.—Patricia Smith