With Dark Testament : Blackout Poems, Crystal Simone Smith shares the mourning and pain of a community, deeply wounded by unlawful killings and racism : Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Sybrina Fulton, Michael Brown, Jordan Davis, Michelle Kenney, Daunte Wright, Aiyana Jones, Laquan McDonald, Rodney King, Sandra Bland, George Floyd, Walter Scott, or Breonna Taylor ; to only name a few of a very long, too long list. It is to them, and many others, that Smith’ s poems are dedicated.

In her poems, Crystal Simone Smith shares the voices of the Black Community and Black Lives Matters Movement. She shares the voices of the dead, but also the ones of the living. I have never read Black out poems before. They give a very unique perspective on the text, a poem within the poem with a totally new meaning. This collection of poems is beautiful, deep, and sad. It is a tribute to justice, truth, equality and love. It is definitively a book needed to be read and shared with the Community. ( )