The Study of Human Life by Joshua Bennett

An award-winning collection and novella exploring the realm of speculative fiction, while addressing issues as varied as abolition, Black ecological consciousness, and the boundless promise of parenthood. Across three sequences, Joshua Bennett’s new book recalls and reimagines social worlds almost but not entirely lost, all while gesturing toward the ones we are building even now, in the midst of a state of emergency, together.

 Bennett opens with a set of autobiographical poems that deal with themes of family, life, death, vulnerability, and the joys and dreams of youth. The central section, “The Book of Mycah,” features an alternate history where Malcolm X is resurrected from the dead, as is a young black man shot by the police some fifty years later in Brooklyn. The final section of The Study of Human Life are poems that Bennett has written about fatherhood, on the heels of his own first child being born.

Author: Joshua Bennett

Poetry

Published on 30 January 2025 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (Bloomsbury Poetry) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback / softback | 160 pages
131 x 198 x 16 | 162g