D.F. Brown's Ghost of a Person Passing in Front of the Flag traces a soldier's deployment in and return from Vietnam as he sifts through the horror "for some peace with honor." In these dreamlike, never fragile poems, the narrator's Ozarks childhood merges with the "triple canopy" of Binh Dinh, both places equally combustive by the delirium of memory--"a swarm smeared across the page."Ghost is as much about the senselessness of war as the co-option of language in a country "sick with flags." Brown's world is built from words both ethereal and barbed, gleaming as gunmetal or a freshly-washed '59 Ford coupe. As "torn and bloodied boys" are "johnwayned," the poet exposes the false metaphors that further entrench deceptions: "Imagine," he writes, "all the red it takes to make this true."The barbarity of the American War in Vietnam never fades, but beauty cannot help but persist --"roses through chain link." Wry observation rubs against wonder, and while this never exonerates us, Brown's artistry shines a light more powerful, we hope, than our individual and collective echoes of pain. It is the poet's job to remind us of the sanctity of language, that "words silhouette what we cannot keep." With Ghost, Brown leaves an indelible mark.

Ghost of a Person Passing in Front of the Flag: Poems

Literature & Fiction

Brown, D F

Poetry

Bloomsday Literary

Newsworthy wrestles with living in a culture infected by white supremacy where current media is distrusted, cursory, and impossible to escape. And yet, we yearn to know. We crave a thoughtfulness--apart from soundbites and viral videos--that plumbs deeper, one that reawakens our shared humanity by reminding us that under headlines beat all of our "pierced hearts."
A leading light in the new poetic guard, Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton's collection is a poetic reimagining of the newspaper, collecting cutouts from the editing floor to resurrect those who would otherwise be forgotten. Not content to further sensationalize the horrors perpetrated on Black Americans by a broken justice system, Mouton boldly relays stories of police brutality by reinventing poetic form and function, reminding us that wisdom, context, and every angle of truth is what infuses information with elucidation.
Akin to An American Marriage, Newsworthy grounds the fragility and danger inherent in contemporary Black experience in an "ordinary" family: mother, father, brother (Josh), and sister (Amandla), following their near and lived tragedies against the backdrop of murdered black Americans. Amandla serves as a surrogate for all of us, regardless of skin color, morphing from naive bystander to headline herself. Alongside her, we witness the exponential compilation of threat. We learn to conceive of dread, anger, compassion, suffering, and love as survival tactics. And we uncover what we should have seen all along: that to be human in the world is to rectify its injustices. With Newsworthy, Mouton brings us news of the heart.

Newsworthy: Poems

Mouton, Deborah D E E P

Through this sparsely adorned collection of dramatic monologues, Jabari Asim ruthlessly interrogates entrenched injustice and its insidious echoes. Part rap sheet, part concept album, Asim lays down tracks which add conviction to our collective broken record: What could be more American than pretending truths were self-evident when they seldom were? Drawing defiant inspiration from Rap and the Blues, these poems arrest our attention and burn grooves into us. Like bare bulbs swinging in windowless rooms, Asim's poems offer little solace. Their keening is inescapable, interrupting our piped-in playlists. Without the pretense of safety, Stop & Frisk plays for keeps. These starkly revelatory poems caution us that until we're brave enough to see ourselves as we are, we will endlessly replay the sins of the present.

Stop and Frisk: American Poems

Jabari Asim

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Books by Bloomsday Literary

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Bloomsday Literary publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Ghost of a Person Passing in Front of the Flag: Poems

Newsworthy: Poems

Stop and Frisk: American Poems