Forest Primeval: Poems (Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award)

ISBN: 0810132435

Author: Francis, Vievee

Condition: New

Winner, 2017 Kingsley Tufts Poetry AwardWinner, 2016 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in the Poetry categoryFinalist, 2015 Balcones Poetry PrizeShortlist finalist, 2015 PEN Open Book Award for an exceptional book by an author of color"Another Anti-Pastoral," the opening poem of Forest Primeval, confesses that sometimes "words fail." With a "bleat in [her] throat," the poet identifies with the voiceless and wild things in the composed, imposed peace of the Romantic poets with whom she is in dialogue. Vievee Franciss poems engage many of the same concerns as her poetic predecessors-faith in a secular age, the city and nature, aging, and beauty. Words certainly do not fail as Francis sets off into the wild world promised in the title. The wild here is not chaotic but rather free and finely attuned to its surroundings. The reader who joins her will emerge sensitized and changed by the enduring power of her work.