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  • The Crown Ain't Worth Much by Hanif Abdurraqib book cover
  • The Crown Ain't Worth Much by Hanif Abdurraqib book cover
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The Crown Ain't Worth Much

by Hanif Abdurraqib

City life, culture, and the bonds that hold

$19.37 USD
$32.29 USD $19.37 USD
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Awards & Recognition

  • Award recognition

    2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award — Poetry Honorable Mention

    2017 Poetry category honorable mention

AlbakiReads Editorial

City life, culture, and the bonds that hold

Hanif Abdurraqib’s debut full-length poetry collection looks at city life in the United States through questions of race, gender, and family, with pop culture among its points of reference. The poems attend to human voices across moments of tragedy and celebration, while exploring love as both a source of connection and a possible strain on those bonds. This gives the collection a broad social and personal scope: public culture and urban experience sit alongside the intimate ties of family and affection. Its subject matter brings together observation of the world around us and the complexities of staying connected within it.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Poetry readers interested in contemporary city life in the United States.
  • Readers seeking poems that engage with race, gender, family, and pop culture.
  • Readers interested in poetry about love, connection, tragedy, and celebration.

Themes

City lifeRace and genderFamily and lovePop cultureTragedy and celebration

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

Debut Collection from the 2026 American Boooksellers Association Indie Bookstore Ambassador, Hanif Abdurraquib

* Recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant"
* 2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award - Poetry Honorable Mention
* 2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award - Grand Prize Short List
* 2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominee

The Crown Ain't Worth Much, Hanif Abdurraqib's first full-length collection, is a sharp and vulnerable portrayal of city life in the United States. A regular columnist for MTV.com, Abdurraqib brings his interest in pop culture to these poems, analyzing race, gender, family, and the love that finally holds us together even as it threatens to break us. Terrance Hayes writes that Abdurraqib "bridges the bravado and bling of praise with the blood and tears of elegy." The poems in this collection are challenging and accessible at once, as they seek to render real human voices in moments of tragedy and celebration.
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