Review | Hanif Abdurraqib at Possible Futures
Hanif Abdurraqib at Possible Futures (with dog). Photo: Reggie Woolery
During a recent visit to Possible Futures bookstore in New Haven, the poet, music, and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib read from a selection of poems and essays, including an excerpt of A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance. Organized around “movements” rather than chapters, with titles like “Performing Miracles” and “Suspending Disbelief,” we know enchantments are in store. Abdurraqib’s love of sound and situation compels us to reconsider views of things for which we may already have formed hard opinions.
This is quite a trick. As a child in Ohio, Abdurraqib engaged in listening exercises with his father, who wanted to know what his son heard in the music, not just what he thought. Abdurraqib has learned to pay attention to sounds and moments we might easily turn away from. This is something Abdurraqib shares with Toni Morrison—also an Ohio native—who found her hometown just right to picture life and Black folks’ place in the world. A quote from Morrison prefaces A Little Devil in America: “Think about our lives. Tell us your particularized world. Make up a story.”
“Ohio is the only place I wanted to be,” Abdurraqib offered. “Partly because of being a Toni Morrison fan. She is from Columbus. I live in the place where I was born. In that place, people talk to me like I am. There is a line between people being proud of you, and not impressed by you. Which they shouldn’t be. I am their neighbor. I am grounded there.” The promo photo for the salon event features Abdurraqib, with a wry smile, hat on backward, wearing a jacket stitched with the slogan, “Ohio against the world,” and low-key defiant about his flyover state status.
The last line of Abdurraqib’s piece “On Times I Have Forced Myself to Dance” in A Little Devil in America ends with an unexpected loss, somewhat a non sequitur, leaving me more questions than answers. In the hands of someone who sees genres as unfixed as time, I travel between grasping reality and becoming lost in fiction. It is a form of spell-binding reminiscent of the Argentine novelist Julio Cortazar, who frequently left readers at the edge of an emotional cliff, which must then be negotiated alone.
Abdurraqib took a sip of water, paused, then gave a warm shout-out to Greg Tate. I smiled, raising my hand in solidarity, as if at a concert or church. Each week during the 1980s and ‘90s, writings by The Village Voice music critic and co-founder of Black Rock Coalition were like seeing the world through the eyes of bell hooks with a shot of Parliament Funkadelic. Abdurraqib’s easy manner, yet funky wielding of language feels Tate-like. “Greg made one feel that he cared more about you than himself. I don’t have formal training as a writer,” Abdurraqib continued. “I learned everything from him.”
Ife Michelle Gardin of Kulturally Lit, author Tochi Onyebuchi, owner of Possible Futures books Lauren Bernard, writer and poet Shawn Murray (left to right). Photo: Reggie Woolery
Abdurraqib’s writing is a moment of obsession, an attempt to capture the allusive object of desire. That sounds like bliss, but the author is often disheartened by the gap between his initial concepts and the final work. “Little Devil is the closest I’ve come to my dreams,” said Abdurraqib. In this process, research is important. Using a football analogy, Abdurraqib said he uses research to learn “how to make the throw before you have to make the throw.” He watched thousands of hours of video before writing his piece on Don Cornelius and the elegance of Soul Train. “You must enjoy it.”
All that Ohio-ness aside, Abdurraqib has a history in New Haven. He lived in Elm City for a time, participating in open mics back in 2017–18, later ending a marriage here.
Standing in line after the reading to get a word with Hanif and a couple of books signed, I struck up a conversation with Tochi Onyebuchi. A Connecticut native and Yale grad. Onyebuchi is the author of the acclaimed works Riot Baby and more recently, Goliath, which takes place in New Haven. It’s Onyebuchi’s relationship with Possible Futures that set into motion this memorable night with Abdurraqib.
Hanif Abdurraqib, Ohio vs the World
About Hanif Abdurraqib
Hanif Abdurraqib is a 2021 MacArthur Fellow. He won the Andrew W. Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the National Book Critic Circle Award for the 2021 essay collection, A Little Devil in America. He is the author of the 2016 poetry collection, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much; the 2017 essay collection They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, NPR, Esquire, and The Los Angeles Review; and the 2019 non-fiction book, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes on A Tribe Called Quest, a New York Times Bestseller.
About Reggie Woolery
Reggie Woolery is a writer, artist, and educator living in North Haven, Connecticut. Follow him at @arts4good
