Shade Is a Place
Penguin Publishing Group · Paperback · November 4, 2025
From National Poetry Series winner MaKshya Tolbert, a "startlingly original debut" (Maggie Millner) that meanders toward possibilities of arboreal relief among entanglements of place, property, and urban planning in Charlottesville, Virginia Shade is a place meanders east–west along Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, seeking “a Black sense of place” at the pace of stressed shade and street trees, the mall’s architectural history, and the speaker’s ongoing questions and reflections.
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- Who it’s for
- Readers interested in lyric walking poems and travelogue
- Themes
- Black sense of place, Urban planning and property, Trees and inner life
- Pacing
- Reflective
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From National Poetry Series winner MaKshya Tolbert, a "startlingly original debut" (Maggie Millner) that meanders toward possibilities of arboreal relief among entanglements of place, property, and urban planning in Charlottesville, Virginia Shade is a place meanders east–west along Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, seeking “a Black sense of place” at the pace of stressed shade and street trees, the mall’s architectural history, and the speaker’s ongoing questions and reflections.
Continue reading
The collection of poems is a moving invitation to open one’s attention by looking up, down, and always within. Through lyric walking poems (“tree walks” and “shade walks”) and Bashō-style travelogue, Shade is a place unfolds as much through arboreal life as through one’s inner life—sometimes alone, sometimes with others, and always among turning trees.
Who it’s for
- Readers interested in lyric walking poems and travelogue
- Readers drawn to poetry about urban place, trees, and inner life
Where it sits
| Place Poetry | 70% |
|---|---|
| Nature Poetry | 64% |
| African American Poetry | 53% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- African American Poetry
- Nature Poetry
- Place Poetry
- Authors
- MaKshya Tolbert
- Publisher
- Penguin Publishing Group
- Published
- November 4, 2025
- Format
- Paperback
- Theme
- Black sense of place · Urban planning and property · Trees and inner life
- Reading lane
- African American Poetry