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Chapters (50)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. Epigraph
  6. WIND IN A BOX
  7. WOOFER (WHEN I CONSIDER THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN)
  8. TALK
  9. BLACK HISTORY
  10. ROOT
  11. I. MJ FAN LETTER
  12. II. A FEW RUMORS CONCERNING MR. POTATO HEAD
  13. III. OMNIPOP, 1982
  14. IV. RSVP
  15. THE BLUE BARAKA
  16. THE BLUE BORGES
  17. THE BLUE BOWIE
  18. THE BLUE ETHERIDGE
  19. HARRYETTE MULLEN LECTURE ON THE AMERICAN DREAM
  20. ORACLE
  21. MAUSOLEUM
  22. IT’S A SMALL WORLD
  23. I. New Orleans Piano Genius
  24. THE BLUE KOOL
  25. THE BLUE MELVIN
  26. THE BLUE SEUSS
  27. THE BLUE STROM
  28. PINE
  29. A GIRL IN THE WOODS
  30. THRESHOLD
  31. THE WHALE
  32. VARIATION ON A BLACK CINEMA TREASURE: BROKEN EARTH
  33. VARIATION ON A BLACK CINEMA TREASURE: BOOGIE WOOGIE BLUES
  34. TOUR DAUFUSKIE
  35. A POSTCARD FROM OKEMAH
  36. THE BLUE TERRANCE
  37. THE BLUE TERRANCE
  38. THE BLUE TERRANCE
  39. A SMALL NOVEL
  40. WIND IN A BOX - —after Lorca
  41. WIND IN A BOX
  42. WIND IN A BOX
  43. WIND IN A BOX
  44. IMAGINARY POEMS FOR THE OLD-FASHIONED FUTURE
  45. EVERYBODY GOES TO HEAVEN
  46. IT CAN’T BE GOOD SITTING AROUND IMAGINING YOUR DEATH
  47. THE HERITAGE CHANNEL
  48. WIND IN A BOX
  49. NOTES
  50. PENGUIN POETS

“The Blue Terrance” [I come from a long line . . .”], “A Postcard from Okemah,” “Talk,” and “Wind in a Box” [“I claim in the last hour . . .”] also appeared in Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century, Cate Marvin and Michael Dumanis, editors. “Harryette Mullen Lecture on the American Dream” also appeared in Red, White, and Blues: Poets on the Promise of America, Virgil Suarez and Ryan G. Van Cleave, editors. “Pine” also appeared in Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade, Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, editors, Camille T. Dungy, assistant editor. “Pine” and “The Whale” also appeared in the Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, Sue Ellen Thompson, editor. “Threshold” also appeared in Poets on Place: Tales and Interviews from the Road, W.T. Pfefferle, editor. “Tour Daufuskie” also appeared in The Pushcart Prize XXVIII: Best of Small Presses, 2004, Bill Henderson, editor. “Variation on a Black Cinema Treasure: Broken Earth” and “Variation on a Black Cinema Treasure: Boogie Woogie Blues” also appeared in the 2005 Best American Poetry, Paul Muldoon and David Lehman, editors.

Deepest gratitude to Yona Harvey, Tony Hoagland, and Shara McCallum for offering their insights and talents to the completion of this collection; and to the National Endowment for the Arts for its generous support. Thanks, as well, to those who influenced this manuscript through friendship and spirit: Elizabeth Alexander, Radiclani Clytus, the Cave Canem family, Jim Daniels and the CMU community, Joel Dias Porter (DJ Renegade), Paul Slovak, Jeff Thomson, Crystal Williams, and the rest of my kin, both literal and figurative.

Epigraph

I tell a story of bodies that change . . .

—Ovid’s Metamorphoses (via DJ Spooky)

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

—Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

WIND IN A BOX

WIND IN A BOX

This ink. This name. This blood. This blunder.
This blood. This loss. This lonesome wind. This canyon.
This / twin / swiftly / paddling / shadow blooming
an inch above the carpet—. This cry. This mud.
This shudder. This is where I stood: by the bed,
by the door, by the window, in the night / in the night.
How deep, how often / must a woman be touched?
How deep, how often have I been touched?
On the bone, on the shoulder, on the brow, on the knuckle:
Touch like a last name, touch like a wet match.
Touch like an empty shoe and an empty shoe, sweet
and incomprehensible. This ink. This name. This blood
and wonder. This box. This body in a box. This blood
in the body. This wind in the blood.

WOOFER (WHEN I CONSIDER THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN)

WOOFER (WHEN I CONSIDER THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN)