Description

The Homeboy Songs is Robert Lashley’s complex homage to the black community of Tacoma, Washington. As part of a Northwest population with people from the deep South and a survivor of the Hilltop gang wars of the early 90’s, Lashley’s poetry makes sense of the multitude of voices that have surrounded him over the years. His passion joins high lyric poetry burnished by narrative structure, with a language attuned to the ear and the complexities of the human voice.

Praise for The Homeboy Songs 

“Robert Lashley is not just playing with a full deck; he’s playing with all the goddamn decks. He trades in Shakespeare and Simone, Yeats and Dove, Auden and Three 6 Mafia and razzles and hymns, all with the kind of swagger and strut that asks and offers no apology. The Homeboy Songs is a stunning achievement, announcing Lashley not just as an important poetic voice, but as a new kind of prophet, one offering vivid visions not of the future, but of the vast sparkling Now. His poems are charged and smart and smarting; they seduce and hiss; they are, above all, incredibly potent, and incredibly necessary. Look, they say. This is how to look directly into the sun without going blind. This is how to live without flinching.”

—Mindy Nettifee, author of Rise of the Trust Fall and Glitter in the Blood

“Whether on-stage or on-the-page, Robert Lashley’s poems are about voice. His is a sophisticated voice driven by passion, and supported by both intellect and structure. Few poets can equal the power and originality of The Homeboy Songs.”

—Jim Bertolino, author of Every Word Has a Rhythm

More Details

1st Printing: Small Doggies Press 2015.
ISBN: 978-0-9848744-7-7
Small Doggies Press Trade Paperback Edition, April 2014
Edited by: Carrie Seitzinger
Cover Art by: Matty Byloos
Cover Design & Layout by: Matty Byloos & Olivia Croom
Interior Layout by: Olivia Croom
Type set in Sabon & DayPosterBlack
102 pages.