Beg No Pardon

Winner of the 2007 Perugia Press Prize, Beg No Pardon is extroverted, declarative, jazzy, and vital. This collection commands attention from the first word to the last. Brimming with personality and attitude in the very best sense pride, dignity, and graceful indignation poet Lynne Thompson speaks about the search for legacy, love of legacy, and joy of legacy. The poems depict a progress in which she tries to find, or to create, through birth family and family of choice, through erotic encounters and relationships, through the music and language of her hybrid culture, and through the act of writing itself, a place to feel at home. Beg No Pardon is about the formation of identity from a little-known and complicated beginning, both personally and culturally. At times alarming and sexy, at times sorrowful and bitter, Beg No Pardon describes a vivid world of Afro-Caribbean heritage and late 20th century life.