In his debut, No Bedtime Stories of Soil, Landon Smith brings to the page what The Last Poets delivered to the stage. He writes with the prescience of Amiri Baraka as he explores polyrhythmic political themes with messages in his poetry akin to essays by James Baldwin, searing truths that force America to take a long hard look at herself. A reckoning. A eulogy. The last sermon on a crumbling mount. Smith's voice is the fire we need this time. In "Ode to Kalief ", he writes "I hear you in the silence sometimes/The empty space between what your life should have been and what it became in the hollow space you were left to erode," signaling his collective hearing of the violent silencing of Black atrocities in histories past, present and approaching. Smith's voice is the clarion call for these shifted and shifting times-a beacon for what needs our most urgent attention. This book is the one we need right now. Primed for the kairos moment. The manual for next. -adrienne danyelle oliver, author, the body has memories and collective madness