Drag [Paperback]

Duriel E. Harris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2003

DRAG by Duriel E. Harris is a PoMoFunk symphony weaving the harmonics of language and culture into a transcendent whole. Forrest Hamer said: "We've been waiting for this book. DRAG is an exciting and significant debut collection from a gifted artist. Duriel E. Harris composes various and rich traditions of music, voice, and text, and Drag demonstrates ever new possibilities for this synthesis in poetry." Duriel E. Harris holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her writing has been published in ACM (Another Chicago Magazine), Fence, and the African-American Review. She has received grants from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council. WBEZ Chicago Public Radio heralded her as one of three Chicago poets for the 21st-century.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Duriel E. Harris is the author of Drag (Elixir Press, 2003). She holds a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MA from New York University. A writer/performer, Ms. Harris is the recipient of a 2001 Illinois Arts Council Finalist Award and a past winner of the Gwendolyn Brooks Writer's Conference Poetry Slam. Currently at work on Soma, her first sound recording, Ms. Harris is Poetry Editor for Obsidian III: Literature in the African Diaspora and a co-founder of two collectives: Text(ure) and Black Took. In collaboration with the other members of Black Took, she is editing Os Sacrum, an anthology of oppositional/experimental writing by emerging Black poets, formally announced at the 2001 People's Poetry Gathering. In addition, the Black Took Collective Statement and "Pourmoreformore PoMoFunk dunk, dun paramour," Ms. Harris's Statement of Poetics, appear in Fence 8 (Fall 2001). Other Harris work appears in Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Role Call, nocturnes: (re)view of the literary arts, and African American Review.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Elixir Press (January 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932418008
• ISBN-13: 978-1932418002
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,669,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4.0 out of 5 stars One of my most favorite recent reads, December 28, 2010

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catb - See all my reviews

This review is from: Drag (Paperback)

_Drag_ begins with three stanzas from African American lesbian poet Cheryl Clarke, announcing its context and its lineage. On the next page: no words, but the scansion notations of Clarke's stanzas. On the page after: a kind of musical score of what a voice might sound like, slipping through Clarke's lines. This is how Harris teaches us the ways to read Drag.

Smart, sexy, queer, brutal, and honest, _Drag_ is a journey in five movements, and you've got to be quick on your feet as you read. It ranges from wildly experimental "Phaneric Displays" to lyric and narrative poems like "Drive." What keeps it coherent is Harris' constant attention to how the written word/notations can evoke the voice, can evoke sounds. The concerns of the work also revolve pretty tightly: history, sex and love, social markers of race and gender, and how marked bodies survive. Its power lies partly in its refusal to be categorized, partly in the way Harris both distrusts *and* leans heavily on language and the way meaning is made. It's a book that requires and rewards multiple readings. It will set you spinning.