{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1324050438?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"1324050438","authors":["Rita Dove"],"book_id":"9781324050438","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/playlist-for-the-apocalypse-9781324050438","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781324050438.jpg?v=7e9e9355aead3a21","description":"Finalist for the 2022 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the 2021 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Poetry A piercing, unflinching new volume offers necessary music for our tumultuous present, from “perhaps the best public poet we have” ( Boston Globe ). In her first volume of new poems in twelve years, Rita Dove investigates the vacillating moral compass guiding America’s, and the world’s, experiments in democracy. Whether depicting the first Jewish ghetto in sixteenth-century Venice or the contemporary efforts of Black Lives Matter, a girls’ night clubbing in the shadow of World War II or the doomed nobility of Muhammad Ali’s conscious objector stance, this extraordinary poet never fails to connect history’s grand exploits to the triumphs and tragedies of individual lives. Meticulously orchestrated and musical in its forms, Playlist for the Apocalypse collects a dazzling array of voices: an elevator operator simmers with resentment, an octogenarian dances an exuberant mambo, a spring cricket philosophizes with mordant humor on hip hop, critics, and Valentine’s Day. Calamity turns all too personal in the book’s final section, “Little Book of Woe,” which charts a journey from terror to hope as Dove learns to cope with debilitating chronic illness. At turns audaciously playful and grave, alternating poignant meditations on mortality and acerbic observations of injustice, Playlist for the Apocalypse takes us from the smallest moments of redemption to catastrophic failures of the human soul. Listen up, the poet says, speaking truth to power; what you’ll hear in return is “a lifetime of song.”","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9781324050438","publication_date":"20230328","publisher":"WW Norton","slug":"playlist-for-the-apocalypse","subtitle":"Poems","title":"Playlist for the Apocalypse"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"POE005050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"African American Poetry","score":0.7977,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"POE023060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Political & Protest Poetry","score":0.7905,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"POE023010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Poetry About Death","score":0.783,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"POE005050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"African American Poetry","score":0.7977,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"POE023060","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Political & Protest Poetry","score":0.7905,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"POE023010","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Poetry About Death","score":0.783,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"POE005010","confidence_band":"high","label":"American Poetry","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"POE005050","confidence_band":"high","label":"African American Poetry","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"POE024000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Women Poets","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"African American Poetry","score":0.7977,"slug":"african-american-poetry"},{"label":"Political & Protest Poetry","score":0.7905,"slug":"political-protest-poetry"},{"label":"Poetry About Death","score":0.783,"slug":"poetry-about-death"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers interested in poetry connecting history with individual lives","Readers drawn to poems about democracy, mortality, and injustice"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Rickey Laurentiis"],"book_id":"9780593802700","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780593802700.jpg?v=7691e907feed9b49","score":0.7014,"title":"Death of the First Idea","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780593802700"},{"authors":["Taylor Byas"],"book_id":"9781593767877","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781593767877.jpg?v=9fade2c118820a35","score":0.6938,"title":"Resting Bitch Face","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781593767877"},{"authors":["Franny Choi"],"book_id":"9780063240094","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780063240094.jpg?v=8849bba71c5003be","score":0.693,"title":"The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes on","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780063240094"},{"authors":["m. mick powell"],"book_id":"9780593733998","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780593733998.jpg?v=5e9bede749090797","score":0.6868,"title":"Dead Girl Cameo","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780593733998"},{"authors":["Amit Majmudar"],"book_id":"9781524711320","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781524711320.jpg?v=643053f9664f9547","score":0.6861,"title":"Resistance, Rebellion, Life","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781524711320"},{"authors":["Alicia Cook"],"book_id":"9781524886202","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781524886202.jpg?v=989532e9871d080c","score":0.6854,"title":"The Music Was Just Getting Good","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781524886202"},{"authors":["Maya Angelou"],"book_id":"9780553379853","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780553379853.jpg?v=ace44ece5b097a42","score":0.6853,"title":"Poems","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780553379853"},{"authors":["Oliver De La Paz"],"book_id":"9781324095170","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781324095170.jpg?v=49a2750d8244d2e9","score":0.6799,"title":"The Diaspora Sonnets","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781324095170"}],"topics":[{"evidence_refs":["keyword:poetry books"],"label":"Poetry","score":0.1898,"slug":"poetry"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:poetry collection"],"label":"Collection","score":0.035,"slug":"collection"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:poems"],"label":"Poems","score":0.0265,"slug":"poems"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:poem"],"label":"Poem","score":0.0264,"slug":"poem"}],"what_you_get":["Themes: Democracy and moral judgment, Historical and contemporary injustice, Mortality and chronic illness.","Themes: Poetry, Collection, Poems.","Reading lane: African American Poetry and Political & Protest Poetry."]},"llm_signals":{"confidence":0.93,"pacing":"unknown","reader_fit":["Readers interested in poetry connecting history with individual lives","Readers drawn to poems about democracy, mortality, and injustice"],"themes":["Democracy and moral judgment","Historical and contemporary injustice","Mortality and chronic illness"],"tropes":[]},"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":true,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":141,"goodreads_ratings_count":933,"goodreads_reviews_count":154,"quality_score":0.9275}}