Sheila Smith McKoy’ s The Bones Beneath is a stunning collection that whispers, wails, and yells. In her inescapable incantatory voice, readers are transported to real worlds— from North Carolina to Ghana— and to the imaginary worlds of ever after. This book is a remembrance of departures and returns by a poet who is “ the one who would come home.” Smith McKoy summons ancestors and ultimately finds what was lost. These poems are the most brilliant portals. They are “ the sun splitting through the blinds.” Jenny Sadre-Orafai