Felonious States of Adjectival Excess Featuring Comparative and Superlative Forms

A. H. Jerriod Avant

my mo’ favoriter          and mo’ better          is my most favoritestis mo’simpler this way        is mo’ fluider           mo’ wetter           most hottest’cause the most beautifullest        is mo’ beautifuller        mo’ meanermo’ flyer         and most flyest         mo’ shyer         and the most shyestis more than more intelligenter        than the panel’s most ugliestand most selectivest       is the most goodest          is the most burntestis mo’ burnter         and mo’ unrulier        is the most meekestand even mo’ meeker        is the most ownablest         is mo’ purchasablerand the most purchased        thus         becomes the most purchasablest                   at the site of the most shiniest coinsmy most funkiest        is also my most stolenest         but the most stolenestcan’t ever be mo’funkier         than the most oldest          the most thievin’estbe the most brokest        cause the most thieved from          be the most oldestso becomes        the most richest        who also be         the most fundedestand that makes me         the most confusedest         when I’m in the mostkeptest buildings        that be         mo’ kepter          than all the mosttime keepin’est kats        they keep in the back          up keepin’ ’em.

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A. H. Jerriod Avant was born and raised in Longtown, Mississippi. His first book, Muscadine, is out (September 15, 2023) from Four Way Books. His work has appeared in the Boston Review, Pinwheel, Callaloo, Virginia Quarterly Review, Obsidian, The Yale Review, and other journals. Jerriod is the 2024-2025 John and Renee Grisham Writer-In-Residence at the University of Mississippi.

New York, New York

"Thank goodness for Jerriod Avant’s debut collection, Muscadine. Here is a beautiful book of poems that do the muscular, rustic and sassy work of elegy, pastoral and blues song. At heart this collection is about homesteading. The speakers in this book are re-organizing the landscape in the face of personal and communal loss. Avant’s ear is unmatched. His poems long to be read and shared aloud. In that, and many other ways, Muscadine will elicit intimacy and build community. A necessary book in fraught times."
—francine j. harris

"The advance in your hand is militantly unguarded. These poems, and what’s held and released in them, are so strong and inexhaustible that there is more than enough to sustain the fury of affectability. We are in love at war and our thick-skinned wine is heavy with the memory of specific pills and gut ideas and innovators under pressure. It’s just about unbelievable how deeply Jerriod Avant knows all that. Muscadine is absolutely beautiful."
—Fred Moten

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