Let the Poets Govern.jpg
Let the Poets Govern.jpg

Let the Poets Govern by Camonghne Felix

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Hardcover:

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • In this part-memoir, part-manifesto, an acclaimed poet interprets Black radical literary traditions to reimagine freedom through refusal.

“In these fierce yet tender pages, Camonghne Felix reveals how imagination can become a form of governance—an instrument for creating a world rooted in care, community, and radical possibility.”—Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow

For a decade, Camonghne Felix worked inside American politics — writing speeches, managing campaign crises, sitting in rooms where language was a tool for winning, not for telling the truth.

Let the Poets Govern is her argument for a different relationship to language altogether, one drawn from Black radical poetic traditions that treat words as a means of liberation rather than persuasion.

Felix threads her own history through the argument — her mother, a lawyer; her father, a participant in Grenada’s 1983 revolution — alongside the poets and thinkers, from Gwendolyn Brooks to Audre Lorde, who shaped how she reads power.

Part memoir, part manifesto, it asks what politics might look like if poets, not strategists, were setting the terms.

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • In this part-memoir, part-manifesto, an acclaimed poet interprets Black radical literary traditions to reimagine freedom through refusal.

“In these fierce yet tender pages, Camonghne Felix reveals how imagination can become a form of governance—an instrument for creating a world rooted in care, community, and radical possibility.”—Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow

For a decade, Camonghne Felix worked inside American politics — writing speeches, managing campaign crises, sitting in rooms where language was a tool for winning, not for telling the truth.

Let the Poets Govern is her argument for a different relationship to language altogether, one drawn from Black radical poetic traditions that treat words as a means of liberation rather than persuasion.

Felix threads her own history through the argument — her mother, a lawyer; her father, a participant in Grenada’s 1983 revolution — alongside the poets and thinkers, from Gwendolyn Brooks to Audre Lorde, who shaped how she reads power.

Part memoir, part manifesto, it asks what politics might look like if poets, not strategists, were setting the terms.

  • Publisher: One World (Penguin Random House)

    Title: Let the Poets Govern: A Declaration of Freedom

    Author: Camonghne Felix

    On Sale Date: March 3, 2026

    ISBN 13: 9780593242148

    Format: Hardcover

    Retail Price: $26.00

    Page Count: 192

  • Camonghne Felix is a poet, essayist, and former political speechwriter and communications strategist. She is the author of the poetry collections Dyscalculia and Build Yourself a Boat, the latter longlisted for the National Book Award in Poetry and shortlisted for the PEN/Open Book and Lambda Literary Awards. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, Vanity Fair, and Teen Vogue.

  • Critics and fellow authors are calling it fierce, tender, incisive:

    • “Felix’s voice is as sharp as ever.” —Eve L. Ewing

    • “There is incredible beauty and care in the language.” —Hanif Abdurraqib

    • “Imagination can become a form of governance.” —Michelle Alexander

    • A follow-up to Build Yourself a Boat, Felix’s poetry collection longlisted for the National Book Award.

This book is for you if

  • You want a book that moves fluidly between memoir, political critique, and literary criticism.

  • You’re interested in Black radical poetic traditions and their relationship to political thought.

  • You’ve worked in or around politics and want language you won’t find in a press release.

  • You appreciate writers who use their own family history to ground bigger ideas.

  • You’re drawn to Camonghne Felix’s poetry and want to see her turn that voice on nonfiction.

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