{"product_id":"kennedy-worth-burnpb","title":"Kennedy, Mickie: Worth Burning","description":"\u003cp\u003eBlack Lawrence Press, paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublication Date: February 24, 2026\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublisher Marketing: \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA searing portrait of survival, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003eWorth Burning\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e traces a boy's journey from a turbulent Southern childhood--marked by parental abuse, death, and hidden queerness--through the AIDS crisis, a marriage of convenience, and finally, towards a rugged self-acceptance haunted by the past.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWorth Burning\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e crackles with the heat of a burn barrel. With a novelist's attention to character and narrative trajectory, Mickie Kennedy glides through four decades beginning with the random hit-and-run that kills the young speaker's father. The mother's mourning curdles, grief becomes addiction, and addiction becomes abuse--emotional, physical, and sexual--as mother and son persist, locked in a monstrously confused togetherness further complicated by the speaker's hidden gayness, in a small Southern town.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThrough searing confession and stark image-making, Kennedy excavates the contours of a life that persistently bends, against all odds, toward a ramshackle wholeness. Suffused with efficient, image-rich narrative poems, Kennedy's debut is at once sweeping and intimate, like a love note passed in secret.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44704565461015,"sku":"9781625571816","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0004\/6497\/7956\/files\/7110ICA54aL._AC_UF1000_1000_QL80.jpg?v=1772745994","url":"https:\/\/open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com\/products\/kennedy-worth-burnpb","provider":"Open Books: A Poem Emporium","version":"1.0","type":"link"}