St. Trigger (Button Poetry Contest Winner)

St. Trigger (Button Poetry Contest Winner)

Poetry. African & African American Studies. "Aaron Coleman's undeniable ST. TRIGGER breaks open the conflicted masculinities in the fist-heavy spaces around Black America. Through his hard-hitting, sonic verses, all of the frustrations pushing against Blackness in 2016—the insistent danger, the unforgiving partisanship, the violence—are transformed into necessary resilience. There is so much beauty here, too, in Coleman's dexterous imagery. But even in the elegant spaces, these poems are looking over their shoulder just to be safe. As the speaker of 'Elegy for Apogee' asks, 'How close is absurdity, is irrelevance, is danger?'—Adrian Matejka