Synopses & Reviews
Inspired by The Wiz, this debut, full-length poetry collection celebrates South Side Chicago and a Black woman's quest for self-discovery — one that pulls her away from the safety of home and into her power.
I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times takes its inspiration and concept from the cult classic film The Wiz to explore a Black woman's journey out of the South Side of Chicago and into adulthood. The narrative arc of The Wiz — a tumultuous departure from home, trials designed to reveal new things about the self, and the eventual return home — serves as a loose trajectory for this collection, pulling readers through an abandoned barn, a Wendy's drive-thru, a Beyoncé video, Grandma's house, Sunday service, and the corner store. At every stop, the speaker is made to confront her womanhood, her sexuality, the visibility of her body, alcoholism in her family, and various ways in which narratives are imposed on her.
Subverting monolithic ideas about the South Side of Chicago, and re-casting the city as a living, breathing entity, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times spans sestinas, sonnets, free-verse, and erasures, all to reimagine the concept of home. Chicago isn't just a city, but a teacher, a lingering shadow, a way of seeing the world.
Review
"Some collections attempt to build new worlds. Others return to old worlds and write them anew. Byas' dive into the familial and the familiar is an intimate project, one that questions motherhood, love, and mourning in tandem. Taylor's Chicago flexes and bristles and brims with life. In Byas' work, Chicago is a/the world, one reimagined as a clever, raw, and beautiful character. Clever, especially so because Byas uses a vast toolbelt stocked well with forms and voice(s) and smirking candor. She tells us of and tells us the truth. Byas writes, 'what we want has so little room to grow, ' yet all the while, makes room, makes room, makes room. Move out the damn way already!" Aurielle Marie, author of Gumbo Ya Ya: Poems
Review
"In The Wiz, Dorothy finds the song of Oz and follows it down the road, easily — Taylor Byas unearths that spirit-music, too, in her stunning debut, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times. These poems illuminate Chicago, the body, the sweat of condensation on the Kool Aid cups cooling in the heat on a summer day in technicolor memory and careful music. It is the Chicago that's there all along among the emerald streets, the self that is always there, the loud and frightening sparkle of a father's memory, and the sharp edge of a lover's rough touch. It is the shades of love blooming, green, across the South Side of Chicago. In fresh, inventive, and living formal verse and free verse, Taylor Byas paints the golden path, brick by brick, and we ease on down it." Ashley M. Jones, author of Reparations Now!: Poems
Review
"My fellow Chicagoans, rejoice. Taylor Byas's poems are visually stunning and formally inventive. They give us more proof that everything dope does indeed come from Chicago." José Olivarez, author of Promises of Gold
Synopsis
Shortlisted for the Maya Angelou Book Award Inspired by The Wiz, this debut, full-length poetry collection celebrates South Side Chicago and a Black woman's quest for self-discovery--one that pulls her away from the safety of home and into her power
I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times takes its inspiration and concept from the cult classic film The Wiz to explore a Black woman's journey out of the South Side of Chicago and into adulthood. The narrative arc of The Wiz--a tumultuous departure from home, trials designed to reveal new things about the self, and the eventual return home--serves as a loose trajectory for this collection, pulling readers through an abandoned barn, a Wendy's drive-thru, a Beyonc video, Grandma's house, Sunday service, and the corner store. At every stop, the speaker is made to confront her womanhood, her sexuality, the visibility of her body, alcoholism in her family, and various ways in which narratives are imposed on her.
Subverting monolithic ideas about the South Side of Chicago, and re-casting the city as a living, breathing entity, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times spans sestinas, sonnets, free-verse, and erasures, all to reimagine the concept of home. Chicago isn't just a city, but a teacher, a lingering shadow, a way of seeing the world.
Synopsis
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Winner of the Maya Angelou Book Award
Shortlisted for the CHIRBy Awards Inspired by The Wiz, this debut, full-length poetry collection celebrates South Side Chicago and a Black woman's quest for self-discovery--one that pulls her away from the safety of home and into her power
I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times takes its inspiration and concept from the cult classic film The Wiz to explore a Black woman's journey out of the South Side of Chicago and into adulthood. The narrative arc of The Wiz--a tumultuous departure from home, trials designed to reveal new things about the self, and the eventual return home--serves as a loose trajectory for this collection, pulling readers through an abandoned barn, a Wendy's drive-thru, a Beyonc video, Grandma's house, Sunday service, and the corner store. At every stop, the speaker is made to confront her womanhood, her sexuality, the visibility of her body, alcoholism in her family, and various ways in which narratives are imposed on her.
Subverting monolithic ideas about the South Side of Chicago, and re-casting the city as a living, breathing entity, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times spans sestinas, sonnets, free-verse, and erasures, all to reimagine the concept of home. Chicago isn't just a city, but a teacher, a lingering shadow, a way of seeing the world.
About the Author
Taylor Byas is a Black Chicago native currently living in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is the 1st place winner of the 2020 Poetry Super Highway, the 2020 Frontier Poetry Award for New Poets Contests, and the 2021 Adrienne Rich Poetry Prize. She is the author of the chapbooks Bloodwarm and Shutter.