Winner of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry (2017) Acclaimed poet Shane McCrae's latest collection is a book about freedom told through stories of captivity. Historical persona poems and a prose memoir at the centre of the book address the illusory freedom of both black and white Americans. In the book's three sequences, McCrae explores the role mass entertainment plays in oppression, he confronts the myth that freedom can be based upon the power to dominate others, and, in poems about the mixed-race child adopted by Jefferson Davis in the last year of the Civil War, he interrogates the infrequently examined connections between racism and love. A reader's companion is available at wesleyan.edu/wespress/readerscompanions.
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I am the keeper tells Me the most popular exhibit You might not think this cheers me but it does I'm given many opportunities HIS GOD
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(@weslpress, 17 January 2016, ebook, 108 pages, borrowed from @natpoetrylib via @OverDriveLibs)
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This is my first time reading the poet. I thought this was an incredible book of poetry and I look forward to reading more of his work. I'm glad I decided to read this and feel privileged that I was able to engage with such impressive work. The premise is unusual; poems about repression, oppression and captivity told through voices of black and white people across time. Each voice was strong and impressive and each poem really stood out. I though this was an incredible body of work.
