Until We Talk

This collection is a set of jazz-inflected ghazals tied to epigraphs from Colum McCann’s award-winning novel Apeirogon and illuminated with Bill Gingles’ abstract expressionist paintings.

Until We Talk is of race, ethnicity, human rights, social justice, hate crime, terror, supremacy, colonialism/post-colonialism/neo-colonialism, the Other. Predominately rooted in the tragic losses in contemporary Israeli and Palestinian families, the poems braid those losses into parallel losses in geo-political race, ethnic, class, and caste conflicts.

Darrell Bourque is professor emeritus of English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where he also directed the interdisciplinary humanities studies program. He served as a Louisiana Poet Laureate and was recipient of the Louisiana Book Festival’s Writer Award and the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Humanist of the Year Award. His publications include Burnt Water Suite, The Blue Boat, In Ordinary Light-New and Selected Poems, Megan’s Guitar and Other Poems from Acadie, and Migraré.

Bill Gingles is an artist and former art educator. His paintings are represented by galleries in the U.S., British Columbia, and London. He works and lives in Louisiana with his wife Diana and their three Jack Russell terriers: Bridget, Farley, and Penny.