Star Power: Poems

A celebration and testament to the tenacity of life on the margins, brilliantly illuminating Black and queer experience.

In this collection, a jubilant testimony to the joys and hardships of the Black queer experience, poet Nicholas Goodly explores language that venerates the saints of their life—those people in cultures and communities who are not often seen as the powerful, brave, and heroic figures that they are. An ode to endurance, love, and play, Star Power carves out a place of pleasure and solace, a personal pantheon of legends from the Wonder Twins, Thundercat, and Tiffany Pollard to Venus Xtravaganza, the Olsen Twins, and Grace Jones.

Defiant and unapologetic, Star Power charts a path of joy and wonder, cutting through caustic history and an oppressive present to speak directly to these vibrant lives, which have long been overlooked.

Nicholas Goodly is the author of Black Swim. Goodly is the recipient of the 2017 Chapbook Fellowship from the Poetry Society of America and was a finalist for the 2020 Jake Adam York Prize and the runner-up for the 2019 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.