You guys, the live and the stacks tour is underway.

We had an incredible night in Oakland filled with bookish conversations, hot takes, games,

cocktails. If you missed it, I'm sorry, but don't worry, it's not too late to see the stacks live

in one of our next four stops. Join me in Chicago with Samantha Erby on August 27th

in Washington, D.C. with Jason Reynolds on September 24th in New York City with KSA

Lehman on September 25th and in LA on October 18th with some extra special guests that we will

be announcing real soon. Tickets are selling fast so head to the stackspodcast.com slash tour

and get your tickets before we sell out. Hey everybody, before we get into today's episode,

I just wanted to say that this week marks five years of the stacks and I honestly cannot believe

that this little idea I had to talk about books with some of my friends who love books

has turned into the stacks as we know it now. So for everyone who's listened to the show,

for everyone who's told a friend, join the stackspodcast on Patreon,

given us a rating or a review or even listened to it and hated me so much, you turned it off.

I just want to say a huge, huge, huge thank you and I'm really excited. There's some fun things

coming from me for the rest of the year to celebrate the five-year anniversary. So please stay

tuned for that and I won't talk too much because I'll probably start crying. But again,

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone and if you haven't yet, go join the stackspodcast on Patreon

so we can continue to have the show week after week after week for the next at least five years. Thank you.

Welcome to the stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host Tracy

Thomas and today we're speaking with bestselling author and poet Clint Smith. Clint is also a friend

of the podcast and he is back in the stacks for more literary goodness after his first appearance in

2021. Clint's here to talk about his latest book, a poetry collection called Above Ground. It was

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