Like a Hammer

Like A Hammer is an anthology of poems that unearths the shared traumas produced by America’s incarceration system.

These powerful poems of witness seek to address the oppressive systems that make up the US prison-industrial complex, revealing cracks in a criminal punishment system that too often appears unchangeable. The impacts of that system reverberate through lives and across generations. The poets gathered here aim to foreground the real experiences of people touched by the system, to upend dominant narratives, shine light on injustice, and act as a fulcrum around which to organize communities in support of change.

Like A Hammer explores how art and imagination can serve as vehicles for endurance, offering us the hope to envision a better future.

Contributors include: Hanif Abdurraqib, Rhionna Anderson, Brian Batchelor, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Marina Bueno, Cody Bruce, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Natalie Diaz, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Nikky Finney, Kennedy A. Gisege, Gustavo Guerra, Jessica Hill, Vicki Hicks, Randall Horton, Sandra Jackson, Catherine LaFleur, Ada Limón, Sarah Lynn Maatsch, Christopher Malec, Eduardo Martinez, John Murillo, Angel Nafis, Kenneth Nadeau, Leeann Parker, James Pearl, Christina Pernini, Roque Raquel Salas Rivera, Patrick Rosal, Nicole Sealey, Evie Shockley, Patricia Smith, Sin á Tes Souhaits, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, Erica "Ewok" Walker, Candace Williams, and SHE>i

Diana Marie Delgado is a poet, editor, playwright, and author of Tracing the Horse (BOA Editions, 2019) and Late-Night Talks with Men I Think I Trust (Center for Book Arts, 2015). With extensive experience in executive leadership, Delgado is committed to uplifting writers and cultivating vibrant creative communities. She holds degrees from UC Riverside and Columbia University’s MFA program in poetry and resides in Tucson, Arizona.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and the co-founder of Hammer & Hope. Her book From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, which won the Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book, was recently published in an expanded second edition by Haymarket Books, with a new foreword by Angela Y. Davis. ​Her book Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership was a semi-finalist for the National Book Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and a former Contributing Opinion Writer for The New York Times. In 2021, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. With Colin Kaepernick and Robin D. G. Kelley, she edited Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies. Her latest book is the expanded and updated edition of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, featuring a new introduction by Taylor and a powerful new interview with Angela Y. Davis.

ISBN: 9798888902479

Publication date: March 4, 2025

Foreword: The Army of the Wronged, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Introduction, Diana Marie Delgado
I. Time Rules this Empire: Where Clocks Stand Still 
: .OR. THIS MALUS THING NEVER TO BE CONFUSED WITH JUSTICE, Randall Horton
ALL THE TV SHOWS ARE ABOUT COPS, Hanif Abdurraqib
TRAP noun. \ˈtrap\, Sin á Tes Souhaits
Marriage, Rhionna Anderson
WHICH IS IT?, Christopher Malec
BLOOD HISTORY, Reginald Dwayne Betts
Architect 1, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
Lost, Sandra Jackson
Under Correction I, Natalie Diaz
Behind the Wall, Christina Pernini
II. Be Careful How You Speak about Rainbows: Beauty & Grace
A.G.A.M., Eduardo Martinez
Bloom, Catherine LaFleur
Eclogue: A Field Guide and Cure, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Scattered like Yellow Feathers, Kennedy Gisege
En las primeras décadas del nuevo siglo, Raquel Salas Rivera
In the first decades of the new century, Raquel Salas Rivera
Knees Next to Their Wallets, Tongo Eisen-Martin
D.O.C. “department of castration,” Pat Ewok
III. The Bill is Past Due: The Hustle
10 Toes Down, Sin á Tes Souhaits
If I were a Boy, Leeann Parker
The Ballad of Stagolee, or Variation on a Theme by Sterling A. Brown with a Slight Nod to Etheridge Knight, John Murillo 
Political Arithmetic, Brian Batchelor 
black, body, Candace Williams
ALL THE TV SHOWS ARE ABOUT COPS, Hanif Abdurraquib
Everything I Know About Horses, Kenneth Nadeau
IV: American Inferno: Inside the Cell
Free, Leeann Parker
american inferno, Evie Shockley
ORDER’S UP, Christopher Malec
FLASHBACK TO THE CELL, Randall Horton
Devour , Catherine LaFleur
Cellfish, SHE>i
Break from Madness, Kennedy A. Gisege
cinderblock calendars, Eduardo Martinez
Under Correction II, Natalie Diaz
ONLY ONE CLOCK, Patricia Smith
V. What Is Caged Is Also Kept from Us: The People
The First Day, Vicki Hicks
BUT THE PHONE RINGS SOMETIMES, Patricia Smith
What is Caged is Also Kept From Us, Ada Limón
When Every Word is a Name, Reginald Dwayne Betts
Reasons, Jessica Hill
Sometimes I Wonder if God Really Fuck With Me Like That, Sin á Tes Souhaits
can’t unsee, Evie Shockley
Identity of a Prisoner, Cody Bruce
My Father the Sahib, James Pearl
Gustavo Guerra, Vacillating
Click!, Sarah Lynn Maatsch
Ghazal to Open Cages, Angel Nafis
VI. The Nakedness Dark Demands: Surveillance and Shapeshifting
Architect 3, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
Pages Thirteen to Twenty-One from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure, Nicole Sealey
Brutality, Marina Bueno
Under Correction III, Natalie Diaz
Sonnet Triptych, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo 
La promiscuidad tan indeseable, Roque Raquel Salas Rivera 
Such undesirable promiscuity, Roque Raquel Salas Rivera 
VII. Like A Hammer Across the Page: The Poor, Friendless & Black
Black Boy with Cow, A Still Life, Nikky Finney
Notes
Acknowledgments
Biographies