Felon: Poems

Winner of the NAACP Image Award and finalist for the 2019 Los Angeles Times Book PrizeA powerful work of lyric art. New York Times Book Review, Editors ChoiceIn fierce, agile poems, Felon tells the story of the effects of incarcerationcanvassing a wide range of emotions and experiences through homelessness, underemployment, love, drug abuse, domestic violence, fatherhood, and graceand, in doing so, creates a travelogue for an imagined life. Reginald Dwayne Betts confronts the funk of post-incarceration existence in traditional and newfound forms, from revolutionary found poems created by redacting court documents to the astonishing crown of sonnets that serves as the volumes radiant conclusion.