American Sublime
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A brilliant new collection by Elizabeth Alexander, whose "poems bristle with the irresistible quality of a world seen fresh" (Rita Dove, The Washington Post)Too many people have seen too muchand lived to tell, or not tell, or tellwith their silent, patterned bodies,their glass eyes, gone legs, flower-printed flesh . . .-from "Notes From"In her fourth remarkable collection, Elizabeth Alexander voices the outcries, dreams, and histories of an African American tradition that goes back to the slave rebellion on the Amistad and to the artists' canvases of nineteenth-century America. In persona poems, historical narratives, jazz riffs, sonnets, elegies, and a sequence of ars poetica, American Sublime is Alexander's most vivid and varied collection and affirms her place as one of America's most lively and gifted writers. "Alexander is an unusual thing, a sensualist of history, a romanticist of race. She weaves biography, history, experience, pop culture and dream. Her poems make the public and private dance together." —Chicago TribunePublishers WeeklyBarbecues, midwives, "Soyinka and Senghor," "Etheridge Knight, from prison," grandparents, students, "not Congo but Zaire," mom, "aggressive magic," jail, "my book," "children, fathers, brothers"-in this kaleidoscopic fourth collection, Alexander traces shifting global histories, family alliances, ways of working and being trapped, and means of escape in four broad parts. The first, "American Blue," takes in the U.S.'s post-`60s history alongside Alexander's child-, student- and adult-hood (with stops at Ellington/Strayhorn's '40s, Monk's '50s and a dream of Krishna along the way). A selection from a larger series titled "Ars Poetica" covers the ways poetry confronts history: " `Poetry,' I shouted, `Poetry,'/ I screamed, `Poetry,/ changes none of that/ by what it says/ or how it says, none./ But a poem is a living thing/ ... and as life/ it is all that can stand/ up to violence.' " "Amistad," the third section, channels the black Atlantic convincingly, while the last section, "American Sublime," consists of just two short lyrics; the latter ends "light that carries/ possibility, illuminates,// but can promise nothing but itself." This collection makes similarly restrained promises and delivers lucidly. (Oct. 1) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Emancipation3Little slave narrative #1 : master4Ellipsis5Smile7Kitchen portrait, 19718Tina Green9When10Five elegies11Morning, Gordontown14Claustrous Euphobia15The end16Matrimonio17Krishna denies eating mud20Ode21Stray22Fried apples23The dream that I told my mother-in-law24Black poets talk about the dead26Notes from27The African picnic29First word of the mass for the dead31Autumn passage32Ars Poetica #10 : crossing over35Ars Poetica #1,002 : rally36Ars Poetica #17 : first Afro-American esperantist39Ars Poetica #28 : African leave-taking disorder40Ars Poetica #3 : ablutions41Ars Poetica #85 : Modjadji V the rain queen dies in South Africa at 6442Ars Poetica #23 : "whassup G?"43Ars Poetica #21 : graduate study of literature44Ars Poetica #227 : provenance45Ars Poetica #92 : Marcus Garvey on elocution47Ars Poetica #56 : "bullfrogs was falling out of the sky"49Ars Poetica #16 : lot50Ars Poetica #13 : the idea of ancestry51Ars Poetica #2 : christening52Ars Poetica #336 : rose-colored glasses53Ars Poetica #66 : how to54Ars Poetica #37 : patriarchy55Ars Poetica #100 : I believe56Ars Poetica #88 : sublime57Amistad61The blue whale62Absence63Boy haiku64Poro Society65Approach66Connecticut67Other cargo68Education69The Yale men71Teacher72Translator73Physiognomy74Constitutional76Mende vocabulary77The girls78Kere's song79Judge Judson80In cursive81God82Waiting for Cinque to speak83The Amistad trail84Cinque Redux85The last quatrain86American sublime89Tanner's Annunciation90
