<p><b>*AN <i>OBSERVER </i>BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021*</b><br><b>**Selected as one of <i>TIME</i>'s 100 Must-Read Books of 2021**</b><br><br><b>'Profound and singular, smart and sad and funny. . . We need Pilgrim Bell.' TOMMY ORANGE</b><br><br>With formal virtuosity and ruthless precision, Kaveh Akbar's second collection takes its readers on a spiritual journey of disavowal, fiercely attendant to the presence of divinity where artifacts of self and belonging have been shed. How does one recover from addiction without destroying the self-as-addict? And if living justly in a nation that would see them erased is, too, a kind of self-destruction, what does one do with the body's question, "what now shall I repair?" Here, Akbar responds with prayer as an act of devotion to dissonance - the infinite void of a loved one's absence, the indulgence of austerity, making a life as a Muslim in an Islamophobic nation - teasing the sacred out of silence and stillness.<br><br>Richly crafted and generous, <i>Pilgrim Bell</i>'s linguistic rigour is tuned to the register of this moment and any moment. As the swinging soul crashes into its limits, against the atrocities of the American empire, and through a profoundly human capacity for cruelty and grace, these brilliant poems dare to exist in the empty space where song lives - resonant, revelatory, and holy.<br><br>America, I warn you, if you invite me into your home<br>I will linger,<br><br>kissing my beloveds frankly,<br>pulling up radishes<br>and capping all your pens.<br><br>There are no good kings,<br>only burning palaces.<br><br><b>-from 'The Palace'</b><br><br><b>'Very few living writers write so achingly toward God as Kaveh Akbar . . . each of the poems in this collection finds its target' LAUREN GROFF</b></p>