In Bluff, Danez Smith reckons with the role of art and poetry as a poet from the Twin Cities in 2020 and beyond. Bluff offers a meditation on the power of art against a world and a system designed in opposition. Particularly, the poems and mini-essays in this collection offer a reckoning of the Twin Cities and Minnesota through its history, its present, and its hopeful future. In “My Beautiful End of the World” – my favorite from Bluff – Smith asks “Who does this country believe deserves beauty? Who is allowed nature?” – a question that metonymously stands in for the question at the core of this collection – who is allowed beauty?