Pride and patriotism go hand in hand, even when protesting your own government.

Interweaving the political and the personal, this collection of poems speaks out on important issues facing the United States today, from gay rights, gun violence, and black lives to technology, the environment, fundamentalist religion, and beyond.

kurtis has written a poetic manifesto firmly rooted in our times while keenly keeping an eye on the past, whether in the title poem’s evocation of the Queen of Sheba or references to ancient Greece and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus in “the pillaged edifice.” exam(i)nation questions many things about the era we live in but reaches out in an intersectional embrace to tell stories about who we are collectively, filtering our light through a prism that renders a beautiful rainbow.