Communion [Paperback]

Primus St. John (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1999

A distinctive and accessible breakout collection which explores family, history, sexuality, and African-American identity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

St. Johns idiosyncratic and evocative collection moves with a Stein-like sense of aphorism whose verbal play (Vase: / And water are righteousness) often depends on a violence of political associationsThe lamps hung like a lynching/ In my townor on the absurdity of freedom of choice: Mr. Anderson delivers the Stars/ And never has to say anything.// I vote for Mr. Anderson. St. Johns glibness makes his opacity seem more off-handed than significant, but at their best, his multivocal experiments confront the semi-conscious roots of radical change. Dreamer, about slave ship captain-cum-abolitionist John Newton, trolls fragmented, consciousness-laden waters, allowing the poet to envision a highly personal set of conditions that might permit revolution: All the colors are conjurers when our/ mysteries are being solved. And if this could/ not be his dream then by now it should be ours. And in poems like Survival, St. John achieves a caligraphic, haunting efficacy: Where is my father?/ Black got the man,/ Deep inside,/ All by himself. St. John, who along with four other poets inauguarated the Poets in the Schools program, seems to search for a productive relationship between his art and politics, and the results are often powerful.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

25 Exposures
After That
After The Truckers' Resturant
All The Way Home
All This
Ambiguities
American Roots: Moral Associations
Anniversary
Ars Poetica
At Colm's Foot
Aubade
Bedding Down
Benign Neglect/west Point, Mississippi, 1970
Biological Light
By The Mule River
Call It What You Want
Carnival
The Carpenter
Constellations
Dancing With Wolves
The Dark God Of Roses
Dread
Dreamer
Elephant Rock
Eloma
The End Of The Beginning Of The Story
Esom
Field
Fire Starters
Focus
For These Conditions There Is No Abortion
The Fountain
Getting Ready To Talk About Metaphors % Similes On Valentine's Day
Good Night
He Imagined The Gorgeous Pattern Of The New Skin And Settled For Ameri
The Holy Ghost Will Not Materialize
I Think I Will Make The Man Thin
I Told Her To Go Outside
I Was To Become A Bajan
Indeed
Into The Open Heart
Ironing
It There Were No Days Where Would We Live
Kindling
Laborer
Lemon Verbena
Like Van Gogh, I Can't Begin In Prose
Listening To The Curandera
Lists
Looking At A Bus Stop
Lord, Man
Love And The Healing: 2
Love Poem 4
Love Poem 6
Lynching And Burning
Lyric 10
Lyric 11
Lyric 12
Lyric 13
Lyric 14
Lyric 4
Lyric 5
Lyric 6
Maps
The Marathon
May, Age 2
A Metaphysical Journey; From Postcards
The Morning Star
Nelson
Note's On A Painter's Palette
Obsessions Are Important
Ocean Of The Streams Of Story
Oluranti
Once
Our Lady Of Congress
Pearle's Poem
Pentecostal
A Poem To My Notebook, Across Winter
Que Pasa?
Reading A Story To My Child
Ripe
Signing
The Sniper
Song
Southern Comfort: A Gentleman
A Splendid Thing Growing
A Story
Strike One, Strike Two: A Savage Song
Sunday
Survival
Tale
Talk
Teo & Monacita
Textual Notes To Dreamer
That Day
That In Itself Is The Proverb
There Are Always Fish Here
Things That Are Like Butterflies
Today
Turning From The National Geographic To Peer Out The Window
Two Voices From Hester Street (1904)
Tyson's Corner
The Violence Of Pronoun
Waking
Water Can Only Wrap Me But Life Must Hold Me
Water Carrier
The Waterfall
We Are Going To Be Here Now
We Came To Know Each Other
Westward Expansion
What Do Stories Do?
When The Butterflies Appear
Why
The Wily Cover -- Thief's Tale
Wind
Worship
Yellow Sweet Clover
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press (April 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155659125X
• ISBN-13: 978-1556591259
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,716,614 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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