Stop and Frisk: American Poems

Through this sparsely adorned collection of dramatic monologues, Jabari Asim ruthlessly interrogates entrenched injustice and its insidious echoes. Part rap sheet, part concept album, Asim lays down tracks which add conviction to our collective broken record: What could be more American than pretending truths were self-evident when they seldom were? Drawing defiant inspiration from Rap and the Blues, these poems arrest our attention and burn grooves into us. Like bare bulbs swinging in windowless rooms, Asim's poems offer little solace. Their keening is inescapable, interrupting our piped-in playlists. Without the pretense of safety, Stop & Frisk plays for keeps. These starkly revelatory poems caution us that until we're brave enough to see ourselves as we are, we will endlessly replay the sins of the present.