“Everything is a Sonic Practice:" An Evening with Hanif Abdurraqib

by Skyler Barnes
Photos by Odessa Neeley

Hanif Abdurraqib Photo by Odessa Neeley — Hanif Abdurraqib
Photo by Odessa Neeley

The room is packed. Variations of this scene are common in Prairie Lights, but on the night of January 30th, PL is taut with energy. Kinetic. The space is filled with turned bodies in cramped spaces, patiently clambering for settlement.

We calm as six p.m. starts to tick into seven. A relief valve is turned and tension is exhaled as Abdurraqib centers behind the podium. His sweater is pastel, with “Through Being Cool” stitched on the chest. The mellow blue and yellow hues frame him against the brown of the bookcase background. He mentions that this is his first reading of the year; he thinks. Our chests hitch and we smile for the hour.

He begins the evening with four poems. He reads with a director’s vision, interrupting the work to contextualize. Before his second piece, he discusses the lacking coolness of current Kanye, and we relax into the backs of our seats as he eases into it. “MAN IT’S SO HARD NOT TO ACT RECKLESS.” A poem that screams, demanding to be heard. The podium holds the paper with the words coming from his mouth and all the while it is difficult to imagine them having an origin. He carries. He speaks with an enunciation that ensures his message is heard – he speaks as if on Sinai, delivering his testaments to sound. He borrows the colors from his shirt.

“Is anyone from Connecticut?” He asks. “I didn’t enjoy it.”

An anecdote and analogy between a cheese shortage and failed marriage. During the explanation, for a moment we are there, by his humid brick building wandering for a slice of pizza. Abdurraqib eases onto his heels as he breathes with his torso – “it is Friday night & he is woefully short on mozzarella” – and together we practice giving up. To us, a beacon stands as Abdurraqib, a landmark to return to in the drifting.

He ends the night with prose. A sneak peak of a future piece with a Wu-Tang Clan sentiment. We are honored. He settles himself into the sentences, fuller breath and longer width but nevertheless it’s still a song. Afterwards, he takes questions. We open ourselves and he willfully gives back. Meditations on love, blackness, and music abound, Hanif Abdurraqib manages to bring his work from the page into the tangible. The room was packed, each space filled with sound. Still. The crowd emptied, and the chairs were stacked.