Concentrate: Poems

by Courtney Faye Taylor

20 Members ½ (4.25) 6 Awards

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". . .Taylor delivers a layered elegy for Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old Black girl killed by a Korean shopkeeper in 1992 during an uprising in response to the police beating of Rodney King. Harlins's death is symbolic for all murders of Black people, but Taylor carefully examines the event's particulars. Some of the collection's multimedia elements include photographs taken at the site of Empire liquor store, now a Numero Uno Market, and outside of Harlins's school. Taylor vividly recalls show more being told about Harlins with language as incendiary as it is haunting: "And when I found her name, fear had me/ rip a switch from its yard. Fear had me/ creased over a knee to be depleted." She relays the knowledge of racial injustice: "This horror was first told to me when I entered my body, so as I settle in unsettling skin, I book a room inside her absence." Taylor brilliantly illustrates the shadows that hang over Black life in America, but also the joys, such as the elders who educate and protect the younger generations, and also nurture and fiercely love them. . ."--Publisher marketing show less

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1 Work 20 Members

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Original publication date
2022

Classifications

Genres
Poetry, Fiction and Literature, LGBTQ+
DDC/MDS
811.6Literature & rhetoricAmerican literature in EnglishAmerican poetry2000-
LCC
PS3620 .A935858 .C66Language and LiteratureAmerican literature
BISAC

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Members
20
Popularity
1,280,216
Rating
½ (4.25)
Languages
English
Media
Paper, Ebook
ISBNs
2