Heed the Hollow

the long version

"With beguiling shade and a sensuous portrait of bottom epistemology, Malcolm Tariq's 'Heed the Hollow' delivers upon us bittersweet experiences of black queer life in the South. Each poem builds upon the next, inscribing on the mind's eye the interiority of lives at once familiar and strange, their lyricism leaping from the poet's pen to the page to prick the ear of the reader's sinless soul. I cannot unhear these poems. Their whispers shout in the hollow, speaking in un/holy ghost tongues. Malcolm Tariq is the new / black / southern / queer / poet pastor come to town to save us all. I surrender all to 'Heed the Hollow'--E. Patrick Johnson, back cover.