PlayHouse : Poems

Poems on Black joy, masculinity, and the music that transforms a space into a home   Jorrell Watkins's debut poetry collection is a polyvocal, musically charged disruption of the United States's fixation on drug and gun culture.

The poems in Play|House embody many identities, including son, brother, fugitive, bluesman, karate practitioner, and witness.

Throughout, Watkins inflects a Black/trap vernacular that defamiliarizes the urban Southern landscape.

Across three sections of poetry scored by hip-hop, blues, and trap, Watkins considers how music is a dwelling and wonders which histories, memories, and people haunt each home.

Past figures such as John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, and the short-lived 1940s trio Day, Dawn & Dusk intermingle with Migos, the Watkins family, childhood friends, and loved ones both parted and departed.

At its core, Play|House reckons with the truths and failures of masculinity for Black boys and men, all the while documenting moments of triumphant Black joy and love.