Totem (APR Honickman 1st Book Prize)

Totem (APR Honickman 1st Book Prize)

• Used Book in Good Condition

<DIV><p>“Gregory Pardlo . . . wants to explore the druidic function of art, the works of jazz musicians, painters, poets, and others who live imaginatively, expand reality, and make imagination free.”—Brenda Hillman, from the introduction</p><p> <I>Totem</I>, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize, is the debut of a poet who has been <I>listening</I> for decades. In his youth, Gregory Pardlo heard stories of factory hours and picket lines from his father; in the bars, clubs, and on the radio he listens to jazz and blues, the rhythms, beats, and aspirations of which all of which seep into his poems.</p><p>A former Cave Canem fellow, Pardlo creates work that is deeply autobiographical, drifting between childhood and adult life. He speaks a language simultaneously urban and highbrow, seamlessly switching from art analysis to sneakers hung over the telephone lines. Deeply rooted in a blue-collar world, he produces snapshots of a life that is so specific it becomes universal.</p><p> <b>From “Vincent’s Shoes”:</b></p><p> <I>On the wall above my desk: a pen</I><br> <I>and ink affair which I copied</I><br> <I>from a print hanging in the sushi</I><br> <I>bar down the block:</I><br> <I>inflected necks of pedestrians on a bridge</I><br> <I>in the rain and here I hung</I><br> <I>the hightops from a power line.</I><br> <I>It was in me to do. I felt it in my gut</I><br> <I>the way Vincent might have felt</I><br> <I>the wheat fields and the smoking socket</I><br> <I>of the sun rattling, tweezed days</I><br> <I>late into the ear of an aluminum bowl</I></p><p> <b>Gregory Pardlo</b> teaches at Medgar Evers College, The City University of New York, and lives in Brooklyn.</p></DIV>