The Crown Ain't Worth Much

2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award - Poetry Honorable Mention
2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award - Grand Prize Short List
2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominee

The Crown Ain't Worth Much, Hanif Abdurraqib's first full-length collection, is a sharp and vulnerable portrayal of city life in the United States. A regular columnist for MTV.com, Abdurraqib brings his interest in pop culture to these poems, analyzing race, gender, family, and the love that finally holds us together even as it threatens to break us. Terrance Hayes writes that Abdurraqib "bridges the bravado and bling of praise with the blood and tears of elegy." The poems in this collection are challenging and accessible at once, as they seek to render real human voices in moments of tragedy and celebration.

“"Willis-Abdurraqib writes an ode to living, to the making of and the rediscovering of the self, and of home."-Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah, Winter Tangerine”

"The poems are raw: some passionate, some distant, some laden with fear. But as a collection, they create a life that's almost as arresting as it is moving." Kelsey McKinney, Fusion"
"THE CROWN AIN'T WORTH MUCH is not so much a book you read, but one you survive with Willis-Abdurraqib's compassionate, elegiac lyric gently pushing you forward through heartbreak and violence." Indiana Review"
"To pinpoint a highlight of the book is impossible. Every poem is honed, polished, and presented with utter rawness and defiance." Portland Book Review"
"Willis-Abdurraqib possesses a striking gift for merging pop culture with personal narrative." Publishers Weekly"
"Willis-Abdurraqib writes an ode to living, to the making of and the rediscovering of the self, and of home." Emmanuel Oppong-Yeboah, Winter Tangerine"

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. He is the editor of Again I Wait For This To Pull Apart, an anthology of poems relating to music, released by Freezeray Press in 2015. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, and The New York Times, and he is currently a columnist at MTV News. He has been nominated for the pushcart prize, and his poem "Hestia" won the 2014 Capital University poetry prize. He is a Callaloo Creative Writ

The Crown Ain't Worth Much, Hanif Abdurraqib's first full-length collection, is a sharp and vulnerable portrayal of city life in the United States. A regular columnist for MTV.com, Abdurraqib brings his interest in pop culture to these poems, analyzing race, gender, family, and the love that finally holds us together even as it threatens to break us. Terrance Hayes writes that Abdurraqib "bridges the bravado and bling of praise with the blood and tears of elegy." The poems in this collection are challenging and accessible at once, as they seek to render real human voices in moments of tragedy and celebration.

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