Abracadabra, Sunshine is a series of ever-turning letters written to lovers, friends, and family as a testament to human perseverance and to art-making as a continuous defiance against the often overwhelming complexities and hardships of existence. Darting from the Czech Republic to the Andromeda Galaxy, from the films of Godard to the tales of the Brothers Grimm and the Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang, these poems foreground our animal need for love and connection against the background of our historical obsession with destruction. By turns dour and deeply hopeful, Booth’s poems extol the communal and healing powers of vulnerability and love.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“Witchy in its uncanny imagery, seering, and searing, Dexter Booth’s Abracadabra, Sunshine is an intricately woven spell, a “mating of letters” with “the magic of anatomy.” This book’s—this body’s—beauty, exactitude, and unflinching witness—haunt, as “some truths burn like houses and the people who run into them.” Here, lyric utterance as address and artifact takes shape through a kaleidoscope of returning phrases, images, and narratives: Booth’s is lyricism as chrysalis.”—Shira Dentz, author of Sisyphusina

“Mysterious, lovely, and written with sensitivity and craftsmanship, Dexter L. Booth’s second book is about what it means to care for one another is a world where “sorrow is often camouflaged by the body.” Booth’s genius is that he is able, through perfectly constructed images of imaginative depth, to relay a pervasive sense of compassion, clarity, and awe.”—Sandra Simonds, author of Atopia