How We Fight for Our Lives

I’d recommend this to a fiery young student who is coming to terms with his identity. Even though Jones gets really specific about certain encounters in this memoir, I’d risk the censorship for an adolescent to know he was not alone.

This book is absolutely divine. It really gets into the heart of a poet, his alienation on a Midwestern campus, his complicated relationship with family—leading to the last line of last lines, ‘We are both here because of our mothers’, which may not do anything for you now, but once you read the book, it will soak your heart… show more.

From childhood through college and a burgeoning career, the author’s honest and unambiguous voice matures as he paints a vivid picture of growing up poor, Black, and gay. Despite societal and familial challenges, having a loving single mother committed to his education helped him to navigate to success. Page after page, readers will find something relatable in unexpected ways.

Jones first emerged in bookstores with his poetry collection Prelude to Bruise. While some may have been expecting another volume of poetry as a follow-up, he released a memoir—an utterly powerful telling of his life, “written at the crossroads of sex, race, and power.” While Jones’ journey alone makes for intense reading, his prose makes the experience wholly unique; a poet to the core, Jones imbues his sentences with such singular voice and style that you’re left in awe of his command of language—and the possibilities to reimagine your own sentences.