**UPDATE: Danez Smith picked this poem as the Academy of American Poets’ “Poem-A-Day” for August 6, 2024! It feels like when an offensive tackle lines up as an eligible receiver and randomly scores a touchdown.***

This past July, I got to open up for Rudy Francisco here in Minneapolis at Icehouse, and used it as an opportunity to formally “debut” a poem I’ve been working on for months, probably my favorite new thing that I’ve written since my book came out. As always, I like the share a few notes on the process.

1. Yes, the title is a reference to Mad Max: Fury Road, which is partly because it’s just a great film with some unbelievably cool and poetic dialogue (including that “furious vexation” line), but also because the poem is all about concepts that film explores too: Who survives the end of the world? How can people who have been socialized to go it alone put their egos aside and cooperate with others? And how does that last question apply specifically to men? I think this poem fits right at home in my “suite” of poems about masculinity, from Ten Responses to the Phrase “Man Up,” to Handshakes, to The Art of Taking the L and beyond.

• Find those other poems, plus a big list of some of my favorite resources on exploring the concept of healthy masculinity, here.

2. It’s the “poem version” of a song I released a few months ago. A lot of the notes I’m sharing here are just echoing stuff I said about the latest Guante & Big Cats song, Roguelike. As someone who writes both songs and poems, it can be a lot of fun sometimes to explore an idea from different angles, via different forms. I feel like both this poem and that song are basically saying the same thing, but different approaches may speak to different audiences, and I’m glad to have both versions out in the world.

• Both versions were inspired by archaeologist Chris Begley’s book The Next Apocalypse, which I first came across via Kelly Hayes’ Movement Memos podcast. A relevant quote from Begley: In this book, I show how understanding the collapse of civilizations can help us prepare for a troubled future. Pandemic, climate change, or war: our era is rife with the indicators of doomsday. In movies, books, and more, our imaginations run wild with visions of dreadful, abandoned cities and returning to the land in a desperate attempt at survival. In “The Next Apocalypse,” I argue that we completely misunderstand how disaster works… it was communities, not lone heroes, who survived past apocalypses—and who will survive the next.

3. This poem isn’t in my new zine bundle, but absolutely captures the spirit of that project. As you may know already know, I put together a new zine bundle that’s available to order now via Button Poetry. Seven zines on topics ranging from poetry, to abolition, to consent, to K-pop group BTS, to healthy masculinity, to getting involved in activism for the first time. It’s a great impressionistic look into my work. Of course, I usually give them away for free, and you can read them online here, but the bundle is a way to get physical copies for anyone who wants them. I feel like this “Just the Wind” poem is a perfect companion piece to my newest zine, “Of What Future Are These the Wild, Early, Days? Resources for Emerging Movement-Builders.”

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