The New Wing of the Labyrinth

Poetry. African American Studies. Ed Roberson's eighth full-length book of poetry, THE NEW WING OF THE LABYRINTH, is a taut, intricately interwoven series of poems that present an unsentimental yet harrowing encounter with the finality of life: "where do we go / but to die into immunity in this life / the thousand deaths that evolve us." As Michael Palmer has written, "Ed Roberson offers us, up front, the nerve-edge of poetic speech, sequences of the unanticipated, as poetry of real significance is meant to do."