The poems in this collection are beautiful and sharp, reflecting Smith’s experience as a black man growing up in a society determined to distrust black men. It’s a sober topic but he also brings beauty and joy into the poems, and also defiant pride in his heritage and his home town of New Orleans. Favorites included what the cicada said to the black boy, about survival and hiding, and the titular Counting Descent, which encapsulates his family history in numbers.