Book excerpt: Hakim Bellamy’s latest collection rings with the same power and grace as the people he lauds within its pages, including Nikki Giovanni and Martin Luther King Jr. He celebrates Albuquerque and New Mexico, taking the good with the bad, and reminds Burqueños that any day when you wake up along the Río Grande is a good day. As Bellamy celebrates the power of creativity and community within the city and the nation, he also demands that we face our society’s faults, especially those of racism, racial profiling, and law-enforcement violence. The poems collected here insist that with the power to do right, people also have a responsibility to themselves, their loved ones, and complete strangers to be better and strive harder. Undoubtedly Bellamy is leading this charge, lighting the way for anyone ready to listen.