Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry
by John Murillo
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"A writer traces his history-brushes with violence, responses to threat, poetic and political solidarity-in poems of lyric and narrative urgency. John Murillo's second book is a reflective look at the legacy of institutional, accepted violence against African Americans and the personal and societal wreckage wrought by long histories of subjugation. A sparrow trapped in a car window evokes a mother battered by a father's fists; a workout at an iron gym recalls a long-ago mentor who pushed the show more speaker "to become something unbreakable." The presence of these and poetic forbears-Gil Scott-Heron, Yusef Komunyakaa-provide a context for strength in the face of danger and anger. At the heart of the book is a sonnet crown triggered by the shooting deaths of three Brooklyn men that becomes an extended meditation on the history of racial injustice and the notion of payback as a form of justice. "Maybe memory is the only home / you get," Murillo writes, "and rage, where you/first learn how fragile the axis/upon which everything tilts.""-- show lessTags
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2021 Notable Books for Adults
24 works; 4 members
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4+ Works 77 Members
John Murillo's honors and awards include being named a finalist for both the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Open Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, two Larry Neal writers awards, the J. Howard and Barbara M. J. Wood Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, show more Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Cave Canem Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. His poems have appeared in various journals and anthologies including American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Best American Poetry 2017 and 2019. He is an assistant professor of English at Wesleyan University and also teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Sierra Nevada College. show less
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- Canonical title
- Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry
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- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 2
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