Hymn for the black terrific: poems
by Kiki Petrosino
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Description
The poems in this, Kiki Petrosino's second collection, fulfill the promise of her debut effort, Fort Red Border, and further extend the terms of our expectations for this extraordinary young poet. The book is in two sections, the first a focused collection of wildly inventive lyrics that take as launch pad such far flung subjects as allergenesis, the contents and significance of swamps, a revised notion of marriage, and ancestors - both actual and dreamed. The eponymous second section is a show more cogent series, or long poem, based on a persona named "the eater," who, along with the poems themselves, storms voraciously through tablefuls of Chinese delicacies (each poem in the series takes its titles from an actual Chinese dish), as well as through doubts and confident proclamations from regions of an exploratory self. Hymn for the Black Terrific has Falstaffian panache; it is a book of pure astonishment. Kiki Petrosino is the author of Fort Red Border (Sarabande, 2009) and the co-editor of Transom, an independent on-line poetry journal. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Her poems have appeared in Tin House, FENCE, Jubilat, Gulf Coast, and The New York Times. Petrosino teaches creative writing at the University of Louisville. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This bruise dazzles.
It is rare enough to find poems that use form, sound, meter, and image gracefully. To do so while pushing out the edges is notable. Almost never can the parts come together, all at once, and be enjoyable. Fair warning, some words are uncommon and some references may require digging. Delightful and astonishing.
It is rare enough to find poems that use form, sound, meter, and image gracefully. To do so while pushing out the edges is notable. Almost never can the parts come together, all at once, and be enjoyable. Fair warning, some words are uncommon and some references may require digging. Delightful and astonishing.
If I had more time to give it I might rate it higher; it’s more elaborately rococo and demanding than I prefer but it thrums. It’s not representative, but I love the line “Back to the home-place where God lay like a spine in the earth.” Which reminds me I need to read Mary Karr’s new one.
Pretty rocking and spooky at the level of the word. The Mulatresse section is formally devastating. It changed my students' writing profoundly, totally woke them up to richness of the word.
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Hymn for the black terrific: poems
- Original publication date
- 2013
- Epigraph
- I scarcely dared to look
to see what it was I was.
—Elizabeth Bishop - Dedication
- For Philip
penman, painter, drawer, limner
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Statistics
- Members
- 30
- Popularity
- 929,592
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.90)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 2
- ASINs
- 1
