Lift Every Voice is an astonishing new collection that revels in the possibility of creating one’s own light.
Literary LitStackers, listen up! Another beauty is in presale now. Penguin Books | Penguin Random House invites readers on a journey into Lift Every Voice, a new poetry collection by Phillip B. Williams. Early indications suggest a work of profound literary exploration. Though details remain carefully guarded, the publisher’s evocative description and the cover art hint at a reading experience sure to resonate with discerning readers. Here’s the advance reader word on the book. Consider Lift Every Voice a literary must own and pre-order today.
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In This Spotlight On Lift Every Voice
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About Lift Every Voice
Captivating for both its grandeur and intimacy, Lift Every Voice explores the capacity for the past to be both a source of dread and empowerment, an unshakable reminder of violence and an indelible testament to the endurance of love.
In virtuosic poems that are wise, musical, richly layered, and saturated with vivid imagery, Williams honors a mother “who knew seven ways to say bitch under her breath,” a grandma whose smile “reflects the world,” and wonders at “the impossible lift” of forgiveness.
Lift Every Voice is a staggering tribute to personal and collective evolutions, a vital chorus that answers only to God, community, and the empowered self.
Praise for Phillip B. Williams and Lift Every Voice
Lift Every Voice is every bit as fierce but more open, uplifting, and accessible than Mutiny—a celebration of community and what is divine and sacred in ordinary life. It glows with a confidence that is the mark of a mature poet in full command of his talents. Like Ours, which was named a best book of the year by the New Yorker, People, Los Angeles Times, NPR, and more, Lift Every Voice melds the historical with the magical, exploring what Phillip calls the “technology of blackness”—how African/Black religious and artistic cultures and belief systems can supply a foundation to survive.
Phillip B. William’s most recent collection, Mutiny, won a 2022 American Book Award, was a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, and was longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. A Cave Canem graduate, Phillip is the recipient of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, a Whiting Award, a Lambda Literary Award, a Bread Loaf scholarship, and a Ruth Lilly Fellowship.
Phillip B. Williams is growing his presence on Instagram (8.4k followers and counting) and counts writers like Victoria Chang, Danez Smith, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs as supporters.
About Phillip B. Williams, Author of Lift Every Voice
Phillip B. Williams is the author of the novel Ours and two collections of poetry: Thief in the Interior, which was the winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a Lambda Literary Award, and Mutiny, which was a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry and the winner of a 2022 American Book Award.
Williams is also the recipient of a Whiting Award and fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the National Endowment for the Arts. Raised in Chicago, he currently teaches in the MFA in creative writing program at New York University and is founding faculty of the Randolph College Low-res MFA.
You can connect with Phillip B. Williams on his website, and LinkedIn, and learn more about him on wikipedia and The Poetry Foundation.
Source: Publisher
Publisher: Penguin Books | Penguin Random House
ISBN Trade Paperback 9780143138860
Pub Date: July 14, 2026
Other LitStack Spots
Here are some titles we definitely are adding to our TBR stack, and think you’ll love, including Ours by Phillip B. Williams, Thief in the Interior by Phillip B. Williams, and The Study of Human Life by Joshua Bennett.
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As an affiliate of Bookshop.org, Malaprop’s, Books-A-Million, Audiobooks.com, Chirp, 2nd & Charles, Amazon, NameHero, Envato, and Place-It, LitStack may earn a commission—at no cost to you—when you purchase through our affiliate links. We appreciate the brands we work with, and also appreciate that using our affiliate links may help you find your next great read, a book or two or more, in whatever form, while simultaneously supporting LitStack. When you use our affiliate links, you help keep LitStack running—and for that, we thank you.
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