A Little Daylight Left | Random House Publishing Group

About the Book

A vulnerable, searching collection about facing the beautiful & difficult parts of our humanness with compassion & wonder

“This is a book that will make you feel simultaneously alive and less alone.”—Hanif Abdurraqib, New York Timesbestselling author of There’s Always This Year

from somewhere down a hallway of locked doors, a voice asks / What if you aren’t as bad as you suspect you are? / What if you’ll never be as good as you ache?

Lauded poet Sarah Kay brings us her long-awaited second full-length collection, a decade after her acclaimed debut No Matter the Wreckage. In A Little Daylight Left, Kay explores life’s most vulnerable moments of transition with courage, curiosity, joy & humor. Each poem invites readers to consider what it might look like to boldly face the hard things we so often run from—a heartbreak, an ailing loved one, the fear that comes with new beginnings & uncertain futures—& to celebrate what we hold dear. The result is a blueprint for discovering beauty in all that makes us human. With her signature wit & wisdom, Kay shows us how to navigate life bravely, with every single part of ourselves.

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Praise for A Little Daylight Left

“This is a book that will make you feel simultaneously alive and less alone.”—Hanif Abdurraqib, New York Times bestselling author of There’s Always This Year

“I have been anxiously awaiting Sarah Kay’s next book of poetry for years, and my god was it worth the wait. The poems in A Little Daylight Left beautifully excavate the expansive emotional landscape of family, friendship, love, and memory. They revel in gratitude and refuse to turn away from despair. These poems remind me what it is to be human. They remind me why Sarah Kay is one of my favorite writers.”—Clint Smith, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How the Word Is Passed

“A Little Daylight Left is an instance of wisdom and soul rising to meet the urgency of its world. Sarah Kay’s poems are conscious that they will be read by people with minds just as complex as her own. . . . There’s no condescension, no sneering or smug back-patting to be found. There’s just Kay’s often hilarious, always shattering clarities—a big, brilliant mind tethered to a big, brilliant heart.”—Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr!

“A Little Daylight Left is made up of the kinds of poems you should share, memorize, and use as a beacon to guide yourself back to your boldest and most wonder-full you. A joy to read.”—Elizabeth Acevedo, National Book Award‒winning author of Family Lore

“Within the pages of A Little Daylight Left, Sarah Kay carries the poetic tradition of discovery and recovery. She is a prized memory keeper, offering readers a compass at the intersection of who you are and who you are brave enough to become. These poems are the homecoming you didn’t realize you needed.”—Mahogany L. Browne, author of Chrome Valley

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Excerpt

A Little Daylight Left

Ode to the Two Girls in the Outfield of the Tee Ball Game

Somewhere nearby a ball
is hurtling through the air
or tumbling towards the pitcher’s mound,
an orchestra of parents erupting into the spring breeze,
but we don’t know anything about that.
We have forgotten the game entirely,
have forgotten that technically,
somebody is supposed
to be left field & someone right,
that we were given instructions
about looking skyward,
& keeping our gloves poised & ready—
we have forgotten the gloves. Have abandoned them,
our fingers interlaced or braiding blades of grass,
there is no left or right here. Just field.
Just butterflies & bees, the soft hum one of us offers
of a song we might or might not know.
One of us has a tooth we can wiggle.
One of us puts on our glove as a hat.
We are making wishes on eyelashes & pinky promises.
Somewhere there are girls who keep their eye on the ball.
Somewhere boys who grab for a wrist
when a girl rounds the base for home.
Out here there are only dandelions.
I am wearing the same jersey as you
but mine has a different number
& yours is backwards,
& that is enough to make us laugh.
We laugh & laugh & laugh
& a planet blooms in our laughter.
Our planet is open for business.
Business is trading sunshine for freckles
& business is booming.
The sky is laughing.
The sky has forgotten the game entirely.
Somewhere somebody is winning & somebody is losing
& they are wearing the same jerseys as we are but
they have forgotten the point entirely.
Soon
someone will call our names
someone will summon us back to earth
someone will grab our wrists & remind us of the rules
but not yet.
Not before we have named every cloud,
compared every freckle,
serenaded every bee.
Teach me how to cartwheel like you.
Press your body into the grass beside me,
I want to be able to see where we once were.

Raccoon

I am too young & too New York City
to know
that this is a raccoon
staring back at me
through the sliding glass door of my uncle’s cabin.
It could just as easily be a cat
who has not gotten enough sleep lately,
or a cat who got popped one in the nose
& earned himself two shiners,
which might be what he earns again
if he keeps digging through the trash cans on the porch.

I am too young & too alone in the den
to know not to slide open the glass door for a closer look,
while the grown-ups are cleaning up dinner in the kitchen
& the cousins are shooting at ducks on the TV screen
with plastic orange guns that they do not share with me.

I am too young & too small
to scare him, so he does not run,
just holds tight the scrap of fish skin he has found.
& I know that cats like fish!
But I have never seen a cat stand on his hind legs before.
So maybe this is a Magic Cat.

I am young enough to know
that when you meet a Magic Cat
you must bring him a gift,
& so even though he already has some fish,
I raise my plate,
which I was taking to the grown-ups in the kitchen,
but now serve with both hands as an offering.

The Magic Cat hops down from the railing
& now we are face to face.
& now two more tiny Magic Cats
appear from out of the dark!
& they are all sharing my gift together!

& for a moment, I am a sorceress.
Because after the Magic Cats come the Magic Fairies, I know.
& the dragons & wolves,
the ninjas & spies, the adventures & quests.
For a moment everything is possible
& here,
& licking at my plate,
& I am lost in the blackest eyes & softest fur.

& then everyone is screaming behind me!

& the cats disappear
& the plate is taken from my hands
& the trash is double-bagged
& the lids are weighed down with rocks
& the glass door is locked
& the uncles are shaking their heads
& the cousins are laughing
& the aunties are trying to explain the difference
between a pet & a wild animal
& I am so young & so embarrassed
& so painfully unmagic.

& later,
when I am old enough to know the animals you can keep
from the ones you cannot,
when I am old enough to know
a cat from a raccoon,
a sorceress from a lonely girl,
magic from survival,
later,
when you knock on my glass door
& come in from out of the dark night,
is it any wonder
that for one entire holy moment,
I am sure
that I have seen you somewhere before?

About the Author

Sarah Kay

Sarah Kay is a writer, performer & educator from New York City. She is the author of four other books of poetry: B, No Matter the Wreckage, The Type & All Our Wild Wonder. Kay is the founder & co-director of Project VOICE, an organization that uses poetry to entertain, educate & empower students & educators in classrooms & communities worldwide. More by Sarah Kay

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