Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

National Book Award for Poetry: “Indecency” by Justin Phillip Reed

By Glynn Young 2 Comments

Winterfrost Indecency Justin Phillip Reed
The 2018 National Book Award for Poetry was given to Indecency by Justin Phillip Reed. Reed is a young poet living in St. Louis. Indecency is his first published collection; he published a chapbook, A History of Flamboyance, in 2016.

I saw the National Book Award announcement, but I didn’t realize the St. Louis connection. A couple of days after the announcement, the “good news” columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had a brief item about Reed living in St. Louis. Later, the book editor included a short note and the Associated Press story about the winners on her book blog.

A St. Louis poet, with strong connections to Washington University in St. Louis, including an M.F.A. degree and a junior writer position wins the National Book Award for Poetry, and that’s how the local paper covers it? Go figure. At least Washington University issued two new releases, one from the university and one from its College of Arts & Sciences. This past May, St. Louis Magazine did an interview with Reed specifically about his new collection, and it’s filled with interesting ideas and discussion. (Read the interview; he explains where the title of the collection came from.)

Indecency is not an easy collection to read. I suspect it was not an easy collection to write. It’s filled with raw scenes and language. It’s about race. It’s about a black man, gay. It’s about the violence inflicted on black people. It’s about relationships. How Reed uses language in these poems reflects the violence of experience. It’s as if he’s walked up to you and grabbed you by the lapels of your coat, demanding that you look. Don’t just turn your face away, pretend to look somewhere else, or drive your car quickly by. Stop, he says, and look. See what’s here.

Black Can Sleep

Indecency by Justin Phillip Reedon a nail bed. Black be
quick as catch can. Corner
hanger-on, black as a dead
cell waiting to low-ceiling its empty
belly down on a mop-dragged floor.
Lure of draining, black goes
to ground. Rain dangle: black hitches
like hick cargo. Call round. There it is
a thumb in the milk, trunk junk
strewn across a killing
of lilies. Oh Lord,
black the valley. Wise me
slather mirth, lip the gum. The news
their black tomb of tooth sucks out
won’t news. Black know: Pops
a stone stopped quiet
(of all sounds) in the rolling.
Black cancer. Black sugar.
Black pressure. Black taken
off life support’s hollow leg. Use
to be an hour visited
on us, stained Colt & wild
around the neck, ex
of auntie, blackest one yet,
picked up only after zip,
pockets just a snatch of ay

young black, how you live?

The 38 poems in the collection are jarring, always. They’re also disturbing and demanding. For someone like me, who’s lived in St. Louis for 40 years in two of its more prosperous suburbs, to read St. Louis poems like “Gateway” and “About a White City” is to see another city you barely acknowledge but that you know exists. It’s the city I spent nearly a year roaming around and through when I was the communications director for St. Louis Public Schools. But I roamed, helicoptering from one school and community meeting to another. I didn’t live there. I went home at night to my quiet, safe suburb, which after a time seemed almost as unreal as where I was working eight to ten hours a day.

Justin Phillip Reed Indecency

Justin Phillip Reed

The poems of Indecency were born on those streets. They’re as haunting as the streets they come from.

Born and raised in South Carolina, Reed was expelled from high school three times and dropped out of college once. He eventually earned a B.A. degree in creative writing from Tusculum College and, as mentioned, his M.F.A. in poetry from Washington University. He received fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation, the Conversation Literary Festival, and the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis. His work has been published in several literary journals.

To read a collection like Indecency is to disabuse yourself of those notions you hold as “part of the background.” These are hard words, expressed in long and short poems, about a young man’s life and experience.

Related:

Justin Phillip Reed accepts the National Book Award for Poetry.

Photo by Lariliikala, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young, author of the novels Dancing Priest, A Light Shining, Dancing King, and the newly published Dancing Prophet, and Poetry at Work.

Browse more book reviews

__________________________

How to Read a Poem by Tania Runyan How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.

“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”

—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

Buy How to Read a Poem Now!

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Glynn Young
Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of the Civil War romance Brookhaven, as well as Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
Latest posts by Glynn Young (see all)
  • Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass” - May 22, 2025
  • A History of Children’s Stories: “The Haunted Wood” by Sam Leith - May 20, 2025
  • World War II Had Its Poets, Too - May 15, 2025

Filed Under: article, Black Poets, book reviews, Books, Poems, poetry, poetry reviews, Poets

Try Every Day Poems...

Comments

  1. Van Prince says

    September 9, 2022 at 9:09 am

    *Historic Facts*

    Have blacks of today
    read America’s History
    how the offspring of the slave master
    are benefiting from slavery today
    yet the descendants of slaves are not-

    Have blacks of today
    read America’s of History
    how black leaders of Africa conspired
    with American white leaders
    to sell our forefathers into slavery
    allowing the Institution of Slavery
    of blacks in America to last for four centuries-

    Have blacks of today
    read American History
    on blacks being freed from slavery
    without more, no support at all
    having to endure Reconstruction,
    Jim Crow Segregation, and Affirmative Action-

    Have blacks of today
    read American Historey
    that Africa nor America
    haven’t made Reparation for Slavery-

    By: Van Prince

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Poets and Poems: Phoebe Power and “Shrines of Upper Austria” - says:
    March 19, 2019 at 5:01 am

    […] Poets young and old are exploring what identity is, using their own lives as a prism. The recent National Book Award winner Indecency by Justin Phillip Reed is one example. The poetry of British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy is […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • 10 Ways to Help Your Favorite Introverted Author: 1,000 Words - Tweetspeak Poetry on The Joy of Poetry: As Much as She Could Carry
  • Donna Hilbert on Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass”
  • L.L. Barkat on Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass”
  • Poets and Poems: L.L. Barkat and “Beyond the Glass” - Tweetspeak Poetry on Love, Etc.: Poems of Love, Laughter, Longing & Loss

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy