| Description |
88 pages : maps ; 22 cm |
| Summary |
In her debut poetry collection, Jasmine Elizabeth Smith takes inspiration from Oklahoma Black history. In the wake of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, Jim Waters makes the difficult decision to leave behind his lover, Beatrice Vernadene Chapel, who as a Black woman must navigate the dangerous climate that produced the Jim Crow South and Red Summer. As Beatrice and Jim write letters to one another and hold imagined conversations with blues musicians Ida B. Cox, Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Ethel Waters, and the ghosts of Greenwood, the couple interrogates themes of blues epistemology, Black feminism, fraught attachments, and the way in which Black Americans have often changed their geographical regions with the hope of improving their conditions. The poetry collection South Flight is a eulogy, a blues, an unabashed love letter, and ragtime to the history of resistance, migration, and community in Black Oklahoma. |
| Awards |
The Georgia Poetry Prize. |
| Contents |
pt. I Blacktown Blues of Oklahoma -- Jim Waters Makes Parable of Seed -- Beatrice's Prayer to Be Reborn in the South as an Old Cypress -- Beatrice Repents on the Behalf of Nature -- [Greenwood Ghosts Dress Their Sunday Best] -- [Jim Imagines a Drink with Lead Belly after the Lynching of Lloyd Clay] -- Beatrice Interprets a Night Terror -- Jim Recalls the Soldier He Once Was -- Beatrice Contemplates the Wild Dog Killing Prey -- Love Letter on the Eve of Revolution -- Beatrice Begs Jim to Pull Out Her Bad Tooth -- Freedmen Ghosts Make Preparations for Juneteenth -- Jim Writes His Marriage Vows -- [Jim Imagines the Ghost of Robert Johnson at the Cross-Roads] -- Beatrice Advises Fathers When Jim Makes Way to Crossroads -- Jim Recalls His Birth as a Wasp -- How to Break a Generational Curse (& Other Lessons my Grandmother Has Taught Me) -- [Father's Ghost Sees Jim Waters Off at the Santa Fe Railway Station] -- pt. II Weeping for Spilt Milk: An Interlude -- Ils M'ont Nommée la Marinière -- For Phillis Wheatly at Water's Edge -- Indigofera -- From the Southern Slave Medical Companion -- Mulatto -- Drowned & Reborn -- Bodies Seen at or Disposal Sites: In Lack of Carnations -- Historic White DET653 -- Zouzou -- pt. III Correspondence from Chicago, Illinois, to Boley, Oklahoma -- Correspondence from Boley, Oklahoma, to Chicago, Illinois -- pt. IV Black Town Blues: Greensborough, Oklahoma -- Beatrice Forges Jim's Love Letter -- Beatrice Reads the Almanac to Forecast the Growing Season -- [Boley Ghosts Haunt Jim] -- Beatrice Visits the Church -- Beatrice Imagines Ida Cox Pays Her a Visit at Her Dressing Vanity -- B's Ascension to Bee -- Beatrice & Gladys Bentley Discuss the Fortune of Livin Alone -- pt. V [Jim Imagines He & Charley Patton Pick a Boweavil from Backyard Chicago Crop] -- Jim Waters Sweet-Talks Beatrice about the Paradox of Blackness, Our Good Lord & Gold -- Jim Writes Beatrice a Letter That Will Never Be Sent -- Beatrice Forges Jim's Admission of Guilt -- Jim Prays a Healing over B's Affliction -- Correspondence from Boley to Chicago -- Correspondence from Chicago to Boley -- Jim Revisits the South -- Beatrice Airs Out the House before Jim's Return -- An Inventory of Her Blues -- B Contemplates a Reconstructed South -- Beatrice Makes Shadow Puppetry of Jim on a Sundown Billboard. |
| Subject |
Poetry of places.
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Black people -- Poetry.
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African Americans -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Poetry.
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African American musicians -- Poetry.
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Oklahoma -- African Americans -- Poetry.
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African Americans -- Poetry.
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Oklahoma -- Poetry.
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African Americans -- Social conditions.
(OCoLC)fst00799698
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African American musicians. (OCoLC)fst00799273
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African Americans. (OCoLC)fst00799558
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Black people. (OCoLC)fst00833880
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Poetry of places. (OCoLC)fst01067759
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Oklahoma. (OCoLC)fst01205031
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| Chronological Term |
1900-1999
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| Genre/Form |
Poetry. http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300055931
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poetry. (CStmoGRI)aatgf300055931
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Poetry. (OCoLC)fst01423828
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Poetry.
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| Other Form: |
ebook version : 9780820360911 |
| ISBN |
0820360902 (paperback) |
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9780820360904 (paperback) |
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9780820360911 (ebook) |
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