“Every Where Alien is a book that asks for interaction and understanding. . . . Brad Walrond defies aesthetic boundaries to write the poems that only he could write, poems that travel time and space for a truth that is sometimes painful and always necessary.”—Jericho Brown, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Tradition
In this dazzling collection, the poet, author, and conceptual/performance artist traces blackness, queerness, and desire through the legacy of 1990s and early 2000s New York City underground art movements, illuminating how their roots and undertold histories inspire today’s culture.
Every Where Alien is Brad Walrond’s dazzling afro-futuristic, afro-surrealist journey through New York City’s underground art movements, including the New Black Arts Movement, Black Rock Coalition, the Underground House Music-Dance community, the HIV/AIDS Black Queer Artivists, and the House Ballroom Scene.
Every Where Alien catapults us to New York City mid-1990s, early-2000s to rebroadcast the black queer creative genius of marginalized communities. Walrond questions narrow conceptions of “alien” as outsider, to explore how feelings of alienation also call us toward our shared humanity.
In holographic odes, he pays homage to creative forces both living and dead. Giants like James Baldwin, Nina Simone, Octavia Butler, Ntozake Shange, Amiri Baraka, belong to the same space-time as Larry Levan, Erykah Badu, Vernon Reid, Yasiin Bey, Greg Tate. Here Patti Smith, Kendrick Lamar, Kalief Browder, Willi Ninja, Jeff Mills, Sarah Jones, share the same air.
Featuring gorgeous, black-and-white illustrations, Every Where Alien traces our common and conflicting identities to vindicate why human beings are always greater than the sums of our parts. Walrond is a rebellious virtuoso wielding empathy, grief, anger, and grit in equal measure. This triumphant collection is a passionate reminder that through our dreams and determination, we create our own utopias.
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