Horespower: Poems

by Joy Priest

Priest’s debut collection, Horsepower , is a cinematic escape narrative that radically envisions a daughter’s waywardness as aspirational. Across the book’s three sequences, we find the black-girl speaker in the midst of a self-imposed exile, going back in memory to explore her younger self—a mixed-race child being raised by her white supremacist grandfather in the shadow of Churchill Downs, Kentucky’s world-famous horseracing track—before arriving in a state of self-awareness to confront the personal and political landscape of a harshly segregated Louisville. Out of a space that is at once southern and urban, violent and beautiful, racially-charged and working-class, she attempts to transcend her social and economic circumstances. Across the collection, Priest writes a horse that acts as a metaphysical engine of flight, showing us how to throw off the harness and sustain wildness. Unlike the traditional Bildungsroman, Priest presents a non-linear narrative in which the speaker lacks the freedom to come of age naively in the urban South, and must instead, from the beginning, possess the wisdom of “the horses & their restless minds.” FROM "RODEO" The four-wheeler is a chariot. Horse-wraithsKicking up a plume of spirits in the dirt behind us.Her arms kudzu around my middle. Out here, In the desert, everything is invisible.Only the locusts’ flat buzz givesThem away. Everything native & quieting Perennial & nighthawk blackAs we ride the cowgirls,The witch & the water sky-mirror-split, The severity of squall lines. Also, the lipsParting air like lightning & the girlBlowing bubbles—in each one a rainbow.

Genres: Poetry, Race

Paperback

First published September 22, 2020

About the author

Joy Priest grew up in Louisville, KY on the backside of the world’s most famous horseracing track. She is the author of HORSEPOWER, winner of the 2019 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry from AWP, and a 2019-2020 Poetry Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.

Her poems and essays appear in numerous publications, including Callaloo, Connotation Press, Four Way Review, espnW, Gulf Coast, Mississippi Review, The Rumpus, and Third Coast, and have been anthologized in Black Bone: 25 Years of the Affrilachian Poets, The Breakbeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip Hop, and Best New Poets 2014 and 2016.

Priest is the winner of the 2019 Gearhart Poetry Prize from The Southeast Review; the 2019 Nikki Giovanni Scholar at the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop; the 2018 Gregory Pardlo Scholar at The Frost Place; the winner of the 2016 College Writers’ Award from the Hurston/Wright Foundation; and the recipient of a 2015 Emerging Artist Award from the Kentucky Arts Council. Additionally, she has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the University of South Carolina, where she received her MFA in Poetry with a Certificate in Women & Gender Studies and served as Senior Editor for Yemassee Journal.

Priest is a member of the Affrilachian Poets, and received her B.S. in Print Journalism from the University of Kentucky. She has been a reporter, a music journalist, a theater attendant, a filmmaker, and a waitress & bartender. She has facilitated writing workshops and arbitration programs with adult and juvenile incarcerated women, and has taught composition, rhetoric, comedy, and African-American Arts & Culture at the university level.

Reviews

[Jana]

The second book I received in my subtext poetry subscription from Elliott Bay Book Co.

I read these slowly to try to better immerse myself and fully comprehend them. It is my quest to read more poetry, but sometimes I feel like a fish out of water.

I was especially moved by “No Country for Black Boys” which is a contrapuntal poem. Meaning you can read it 3 ways (I wasn’t 100% sure, but I experimented on my own and then found this article which includes the poem).

It is timely and brilliant and heartbreaking.

https://blackspaceblog.com/2013/07/18...

[Travis Wagner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I assure you that there are multiple poems in this collection that when you finish them you will pause and audibly say "damn." It is just that moving and that important of a piece of work. Drop what you are doing to read this.

[Jessika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Horsepower is a layered and strongly written collection. I also appreciate, for my own current attention span, that most of this collection doesn't play with form and experimental prose. Priest writes with such attention and emotion, pulling together poems that, while I wouldn't say are plain spoken, are direct and accessible and beautiful. This collection feels very present in how it looks at race and history and personal narratives.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astoundingly gorgeous collection of poems

[Ellen Hagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE this book. Joy Priest is such a brilliant poet. Looking so forward to sharing these poems with my students.

[jason crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and elegant. SO powerful, Joy puts words together that stick to your ribs.

[Anahiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of poetry, though it took longer than I expected to read it because the font is terribly small. I liked the varying structure of the poems and there were a lot of hard-hitting lines. The themes of race and identity and, of course, the motif of horses, were ever-present. However, I feel like this collection was also very short and not as cohesive as it perhaps could've been. Nevertheless, I recommend giving it a read ONLINE to save your eyes. :')

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kentucky poets always bring the fire! Priest has shown herself a formidable new voice in the literary firmament with this debut that, to me, is the truest portrait of Louisville, KY yet. A critical yet loving tribute to a home that perseveres despite racism and exploitation. These poems engage, immerse, and change a reader.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was hooked after the first few poems, Joy’s writing is both effortless and complex. It leads you to peel away her writing and put yourself in her world- maybe it’s just my vivid imagination- but each poem has its own story. Each poem connects to the one before and after. In terms of the book itself, the font is pretty small and a bit hard to read.

[Emily Rooker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suspenseful, harrowing, magical, terrifying, beautiful. This book could really be turned into a movie. The narrative woven throughout is stunning, the poems are all in conversation with each other even if they are not, strictly speaking, autobiographical. Will be returning to this many times.

[Chelsie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ooh, so good. Another great Kentucky writer. I love these powerful, gritty poems, and they are so masterfully done. Favorites are “The Payphone,” “Elegy for Kentucky,” “Winning Colors,” “Derby,” and “No Country for Black Boys.”

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books of poetry I have ever read. Shout out to the Elliott Bay Book Co's "Subtext" poetry subscription service. Holy crap. Everyone needs to read this book. Everyone.

[Emily Jenkins]

For class

[K. Iver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Instant classic 🐎

[Carly Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely energized by this book--the poems truly rev, gallop, slow--perfectly paced and grounded,.

[Connie]

from "Dear Aunt Louise, Muh": "Before I left that morning, I plucked a chin hair, sprouted overnight. / Felt the heel of your palm hit my shoulder / like a tambourine."

[Cecelia Burokas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't really rate this book by a favorite poet because the font (6 pt?) is too small and faint to read. Whoever designed this book should be fired for creating the most reader unfriendly book I've ever encountered.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems focusing on identity, race, violence, and family.

from Elegy for Kentucky: "My home did not keep / its promise after my grandfather died. // There was no protection for what I was / without him. Lone black filly. Finished // before becoming. She must have tired / of standing there high-headed, waiting for me // to ride her out of that war, to call out / Let's go. We are done here."

from Abecedarian for Alzheimer's: "Maybe my mother envied Angel because she / saw the truth of him out & when he began forgetting / to hate us, to put his white hood on every day, Angel / used him the proper way."

Overall I liked, but didn't love, this collection of poems. No Country for Black Boys was a favorite poem, and this continues to be one of the best contrapuntal poems I've ever read.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author does a great job in creating a consistent mood and sense of place. Also, outstanding use of language and vocabulary. Highly recommend.