Abdurraqib merges the personal and the universal in such a way that I cannot help but feel a part of these moments, despite some of them taking place before my birth, or before I was conscious of basketball’s existence.
I wanted to write about faith in a way that people who are not Christian, or do not understand that worldview, could read and have a more nuanced approach to faith.
My job as a write is to first witness, and then record. It would be an injustice to these poems if they were not written from a place of vulnerability and truth.
The summer expands in front of them, and their future disappears. The cheap housing they are cooped up in becomes even less glamorous during the blackouts.
The themes in the book subsequently shaped the story’s chronology and created a different style of graphic storytelling, connecting my family’s history with my community work and service.