Hanif Abdurraqib: A Fortune for Your Disaster

Virtual reading with Hanif Abdurraqib, part of the Writers & Books Visiting Author Series. 

Poet, essayist, biographer, and music critic Hanif Abdurraqib’s second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster (Tin House, 2019), won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. Throughout, Abdurraqib uses touchstones from the world outside—from Marvin Gaye to Nikola Tesla to his neighbor’s dogs—to create a mirror, inside of which every angle presents a new possibility. His topics wrestle with histories, personal and shared: how one rebuilds after a heartbreak; a mother’s death; admitting that Michael Jordan pushed off; forgiveness; and how none of the author’s black friends wanted to listen to “Don’t Stop Believin’.” 

This event is made possible in part by the Academy of American Poets' programmatic partner Glen Hollow, which offers an annual ten-day residency to the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize winner.