Book Synopsis

There is no questioning the power of a favorite snack. The flavor profiles, textures, presentation, and mere mention of the snacks in our personal histories can trigger memories otherwise out of reach. hallelujah, honey bun is a collection of poems following the crumbs of honey buns through warm nostalgia into raw reflection. Priced at two for a dollar, the honey bun was the unofficial snack of latchkey kids and cornerstore regulars in New York City. This collection unwraps the sweet swirls and forgotten ingredients that shaped a boy and his community. As a spiritual map, hallelujah, honey bun connects after-school rituals with the macro and micro ingredients influencing generations of city kids.

Praise for hallelujah, honey bun

hallelujah, honey bun is a coming of age story told in parables and memories that live in the sweetness of cornerstore treats. What forms a generation, how is a star born—what manna sustains the stargazers? Isaac Akanmu creates a mythology wherein we are close and grounded and fearless, then suddenly “we dap hands and drift apart like continents.” A testament to everything we hold and lose as we outgrow, and a compelling, compelling collection!

—Junious 'Jay' Ward, author of Composition

hallelujah, honey bun is a lyrically raw homage to childhood, with poems that unfurl like prayers and testimonies, ever-communing with the unseeable. Akanmu deftly transverses memory through cosmic brownies, black cherry sodas, and other coveted cornerstore “manna.”  Through after-school mischief and “strawberry [milk] seances,” hallelujah, honey bun ignites a religion out of ritual and consumption, at-once resurrecting and confronting what feeds us. With sincerity and tenderness, Akanmu implores that we question how what we revere alights our spirits and still harms the preciousness of our bodies. 

—Olivia Dorsey Peacock, author of but first, water (forthcoming)