Preview
  • The Study of Human Life

  • Penguin Poets
  • By: Joshua Bennett
  • Narrated by: Joshua Bennett
  • Length: 2 hrs and 8 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (6 ratings)

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The Study of Human Life

By: Joshua Bennett
Narrated by: Joshua Bennett
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Publisher's summary

Winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize, and longlisted for the Griffin Prize and the Massachusetts Book Award

An acclaimed poet further extends his range into the realm of speculative fiction, while addressing issues as varied as abolition, Black ecological consciousness, and the boundless promise of parenthood

Featuring the novella “The Book of Mycah,” soon to be adapted by Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Productions & Warner Bros. TV


Across three sequences, Joshua Bennett’s new book recalls and reimagines social worlds almost but not entirely lost, all while gesturing toward the ones we are building even now, in the midst of a state of emergency, together. Bennett opens with a set of autobiographical poems that deal with themes of family, life, death, vulnerability, and the joys and dreams of youth. The central section, “The Book of Mycah,” features an alternate history where Malcolm X is resurrected from the dead, as is a young black man shot by the police some fifty years later in Brooklyn. The final section of The Study of Human Life are poems that Bennett has written about fatherhood, on the heels of his own first child being born last fall.

©2022 Joshua Bennett (P)2022 Penguin Audio
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Critic reviews

“A tender celebration of vulnerability and the strength that blooms quietly in its presence.”—The Atlantic, “Ten Poetry Collections to Read Again and Again”

“With a singularly expansive and compassionate view of history, Bennett sweeps across generations of joy, suffering, and connection.”—Lit Hub

“A unique and nuanced window into the effects of generational trauma and state-sanctioned violence, as well as powerful insistence that trauma cannot and will not be the defining characteristic of future generations . . . The Study of Human Life is every bit as layered and complex as readers might expect from Bennett, who has established himself as an intensely patient and deliberate writer capable of upending genre as seamlessly as he upends our understanding of the world.”—The Poetry Question

What listeners say about The Study of Human Life

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Soul-Stirring Brillance

He never disappoints and always stirs my soul- challenging me to reach farther and make my mark as I have been called to do!

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absolutely breathtaking work

bennett is a master at his craft and what a joy to have his performance of this work immortalized for us all to enjoy

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