Items related to I: New and Selected Poems (Pitt Poetry Series)

I: New and Selected Poems (Pitt Poetry Series) - Hardcover

Book 269 of 346: Pitt Poetry

Derricotte, Toi

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9780822945666: I: New and Selected Poems (Pitt Poetry Series)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0822945665 ISBN 13: 9780822945666
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019

Synopsis

Toi Derricotte’s story is a hero’s journey―a poet earning her way home, to her own commanding powers. “I”: New and Selected Poems shows the reader both the closeness of the enemy and the poet’s inherent courage, inventiveness, and joy.It is a record of one woman’s response to the repressive and fracturing forces around the subjects of race, class, color, gender, and sexuality. Each poem is an act of victory as the author finds her way through repressive forces to speak with beauty and truth.

This collection features more than thirty new poems as well as selections from five previous collections.

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About the Author

Toi Derricotte is an award-winning poet whose work tackles difficult and universal subject matter such as violence, racism, motherhood, and self-identity through an autobiographical lens. She is the author of The Undertaker’s Daughter and four previous poetry collections, including Tender, winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, among other honors. Derricotte is cofounder of Cave Canem, professor emerita at the University of Pittsburgh, and a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The blessed angels
 
How much like
angels are these tall
gladiolas in a vase on my coffee
table, as if in a bunch
whispering.  How slender
and artless, how scandalously
alive, each with its own
humors and pulse.  Each weight-
bearing stem is the stem
of a thought through which
aspires the blood-metal of stars.  Each heart
is a gift for the king.  When
I was a child, my mother and aunts
would sit in the kitchen
gossiping.  One would tip
her head toward me, “Little Ears,”
she’d warn, and the whole room
went silent.  Now, before sunrise,
what secrets I am told!—being
quieter than blossoms & near invisible.
 

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Publisher
University of Pittsburgh Press
Publication date
2019
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0822945665
ISBN 13 
9780822945666
Binding
Hardcover
Edition number
1
Number of pages
320
Rating
  • 4.27 out of 5 stars
    105 ratings by Goodreads