Underwear Hat by Aubrey E. Drummond is a sweeping collection of original poetry, with over 150 pieces that each range in length, tone, and tenor. Among them are A Widow’s Desire, a lyric elegy in unrhymed verse, following a woman with sleepless longing, where reunion with her husband becomes the message that love keeps death from ending desire. Black History Revision, a political protest poem in direct address, confronts Florida’s slavery curriculum with the message that Black history belongs to the people whose past was stolen. Chasing Time, a minimalist epigram, reduces pursuit to two lines in a message that time remains beyond human speed. The titular Underwear Hat is a surreal prose poem, turning one man’s dream into a shared public condition on how private emptiness can become collective fate.

Aubrey E. Drummond’s Underwear Hat is a beautiful collection that shows a wonderfully prolific author with so much talent, and I love how Drummond’s lines are able to move through human feeling by pairing austere speech with formal range. This is what gives the work a signature that feels wholly his own. My first favorite poem, I Stand by the Light of a Window, is lyrical in unrhymed verse about a speaker outside lit glass, facing natural life kept from reach; it is excellent because its window image makes separation physical. My second favorite poem, Three Monkey Tale, is a philosophical poem in unrhymed verse built through anaphora and rhetorical questioning, asking whether seeming absence may be chosen knowledge; it is excellent because repetition gives the message its shape. Readers who enjoy accessible contemporary poetry fueled by intelligence, conscience, and heart will adore this compilation. Very highly recommended.

Underwear Hat by Aubrey E. Drummond is a collection of poems in which the author shares vivid experiences from his own life. The narrator longs for the love of his life after her passing. He also talks about love combining two souls and how they developed a new perspective toward the world around them. One of the poems touches on the downsides of growing up as a Black man in America. Another one is about navigating grief and loss amid pangs of loneliness. How can you put words on pages when you're struggling with your memories? In the age of digital media, anonymity is a lost cause. One of my favorite poems was about the joys of living a simple life and listening to the sound of pouring rain from one's porch.

This is a retrospective look at one's own life by a seasoned poet. Underwear Hat will make you feel all sorts of emotions, ranging from grief, loss, longing, resilience, and hope. Like many of us, Aubrey E. Drummond has lived a life full of ups and downs. He pours all his feelings into this absolute gem of a collection that will strike a chord in the hearts of any poetry lover. The poems are intimate and personal, yet you resonate with them because they convey human emotions that all of us have felt at one point or another in our own lives. Drummond's experiences as a Black man in America were truly illuminating. As an outsider, I found his insights and observations truly fascinating. I'm very happy that I read this book and I suggest you do the same!