And the poet does it in a wide range of intriguing forms: “Single Lines Looking Forward or One Monostich Past 45” is a Megazord of one-liners. They investigate misapprehension, maturity, and morals. They beseech natural wonders in elegant apostrophe. The speakers in these poems survey their surroundings as they assess their proximity to others and place(s) in the world.

Hushed sun to pattern after a harp above her, a sure sign of song as tarp,Ī sun against patter, against storm, against glib thunder rumble, against Undid clouds, uncoiled in loose slip of rain and I waited for the first We waited the hall, its curse, ’til the sky

When I was the red umbrella, her lover, I made a precision of hoist. Behold the opening of “Against Storm, Against Glib Thunder”: Herein harris wields language in deft approximation of how people actually think: at times in fragments, pausing in what seems like the middle of a thought, picking up the thread again (or not). What I’m trying to say is these poems, exploring femininity, blackness, queerness, nature, and institutions (political, academic, and disciplinary), have the power to move. If this seems an unusual citation, well, it’s a remarkable collection. A one-night stand with harris’ poems has the power to yield you pleasure, and far be it from me to judge. (I don’t even see it as I did the first time through.) This dynamic collection rewards rereading, rewards research, but let me be clear: it requires neither. On the other hand, you may not see it as I do. Some of its poems can give you all five at once. harris’ gorgeous and profound here is the sweet hand is a gentle caress, a gut punch, a come-hither curved finger, a rib-tickler, and a stop-sign palm. harris (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)įrancine j.

Sweethand book