| Description |
x, 78 pages ; 22 cm |
| Summary |
From the creaking of slave ships launched from Lancaster to gunfire on a contemporary Philadelphia street, Pollock's lyric moments find grounding in stories woven through this book—in one story line, a boy with a black mother and white father wishes he could shed his white skin or carve into what lies beneath: "I flung my almost white self / into my mother’s embrace—that brown / embrace I hoped would swallow me whole / and spit back a boy four shades darker." Another thread follows a marriage and a woman intertwined with hunger and the blues, a woman who hears a whale song in a refrigerator’s hum, who cries hard like the lonely barking of a fox. |
| Contents |
Rattla cain't hold me -- Port of origin : Lancaster -- Recessive gene -- Hart Crane as Jim Crow -- At River Rock Farm -- Chorus of X, the rescuers' mark -- Upon irremediable shores, those who never had time -- Frog -- Child of the sun -- Second line -- Longing as Hoppin John -- Oya in Old City -- Hard bop for poor boy -- Killadelphia -- Lieutenant, returned -- Snow in wartime -- On the porch, almost men -- Medusa of Libya -- Flight -- Confirmation -- King Biscuit time -- Appalachia -- My stove's in good condition -- Black Irish -- Shot & killed -- Blue note 53428 -- Burn pile -- And your young men shall see visions ... -- Queen of the lower ninth -- Northbound -- Camphor -- Diaspora remembers Guantanamo -- Eastern State penitentiary -- Looking glass is dead -- School-march, each day's festival -- Whale song -- Like a blind boy jumping from shed to shed -- (So tired of standing still we got to) move on -- Migratory habits -- Vertical hold -- Affection -- Ne me quitte pas -- Spring & the catkins -- Beth David Cemetery, Long Island. |
| Subject |
American poetry -- 21st century.
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African American poets.
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Poetry.
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| Genre/Form |
American poetry -- African American authors.
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American poetry -- 21st century.
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| ISBN |
9780820339085 (pbk. ; alk. paper) |
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0820339083 (pbk. ; alk. paper) |
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