The Understudy’s Handbook: Poems

"This book helps me remember why I fell in love with poetry in the first place." — Tim Seibles, author of Fast Animal.

Drawing heat and music (and luscious food) from a New Orleans and Houston childhood, Steven Leyva’s poetry reveals a sensibility forged by a growing awareness of race and class: child’s joy and bafflement, a black Baltimore father’s worry. These gorgeous poems sweep the reader as into a parade, of memory, sensation, rhythm, protest.