What I\u2019ve Been Reading This Week: <\/strong><\/p> There\u2019s a collage nature to a collection. Especially with poems, you maybe don\u2019t have an aboutness<\/em>, no \u201cthis book is about a guy hunting a whale,\u201d no \u201cthis book is about a Dracula.\u201d Instead, you have recurring images, themes alluded to and twisted and shifted, images and metaphors whose meanings move around like leaves fenced into a backyard yet blown by the wind all the same. The same is more or less true of story anthologies\u2014there\u2019s an explicit or implicit prompt, but over the course of a few hundred pages, no author repeats. None of these books have marching orders, they have vibes to carry with you, they have subtle ways of shifting your consciousness. I\u2019m talking, of course, about I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times<\/em> by Taylor Byas, The New Testament<\/em> by Jericho Brown, and Out There Screaming<\/em>, edited by Jordan Peele. <\/p> I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times<\/strong><\/em> by Taylor Byas: <\/strong>oooooh baby we\u2019re gonna verb some nouns! This collection does a lot of my favorite formalist poetry things: messing with received forms, anaphora, sequels to poems showing up like mile markers on a trail throughout the text. These poems are always playing with expectations, living in different definitions of words, always one step ahead of the reader\u2019s understanding, but in a friendly way. No mention of the south side of Chicago, violence, sex, drinking, not drinking, church, Grandma\u2019s house, dancing, anything in this book\u2014none of it is ever one thing. Often\u2014and I\u2019m guilty of this too\u2014books by marginalized writers involving things that seem foreign to the WBEZ-listening readership get talked about only in those terms. There are poetics<\/em> at work in this book (and in every book you\u2019ll see me cover here, of course), and I hope that is the way this book is discussed. <\/p> That said, Nate Marshall\u2019s blurb (accurately) states: \u201cSo many of the greatest poets in the American tradition have been Chicago Black women, and this debut collection is an announcement that one more joined that proud tradition\u2026\u201d And yeah, these are poems written by a Black woman from the south side of CHICAGO. Don\u2019t call it Chiraq. And like you would reading anyone from Gwendolyn Brooks to Eve L. Ewing, know that these are poems<\/em> that aren\u2019t to be pigeonholed. Like the south side itself. <\/p> Bonus second epigraph: \u201cto cough up the mind\u2019s desires. The Chicago skyline \/ undulates into view like a vision, glitters\u201d – from \u201cSouth Side (VI)\u201d<\/p> The New Testament<\/strong><\/em> by Jericho Brown: <\/strong>right away, this book feels spiritual. There\u2019s a musicality to these poems, a sense that each line is being written at an altar. Don\u2019t get me wrong, there is very quickly violence, racism, homophobia\u2014y\u2019know, the primary colors of this great nation. Hey, Cain was an early character in the Bible and \u201cCain\u201d is an early poem in this book. Yet the poems and speaker have a hardness, a certain clear-eyed view of reality that you might not associate with \u201cspiritual.\u201d Another collection where the poems are full, multitudinous, resistant to easy readings. It rips. <\/p> Out There Screaming <\/strong><\/em>edited by Jordan Peele: <\/strong>in lieu of commentary, I\u2019m going to give the stories B-movie loglines. <\/p> \u201cThe Norwood Trouble\u201d by Maurice Broaddus:<\/strong> the story of an all-Black town in Indiana defending themselves from a Klan attack, and the importance of remembering the Old Ways and sharing community stories. A tree cuts a white boy\u2019s tongue out.<\/p><\/li> \u201cEye and Tooth\u201d by Rebecca Roanhorse:<\/strong> A story of monsters sneaking, squabbling, eating, and taking care of each other. <\/p><\/li> \u201cThe Rider\u201d by Tananarive Due:<\/strong> two women taking a bus to join the Freedom Riders in Montgomery meet a different kind of passenger in the swamp.<\/p><\/li> \u201cPressure\u201d by Ezra Clayton Daniels:<\/strong> a reunion of cousins, an accident with expensive shaving cream, and did you ever read about the old lady who swallowed a fly? <\/p><\/li><\/ul> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> Something to listen to while you browse? Tim Armstrong\u2019s Instagram pointed me to The Calamatix<\/a>, in case you want some bouncy ska on a Friday. <\/p>![\"books:](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/8a47c34e-7c85-4ae3-8632-62ae404c7409.heic\")
<\/figure>