whose really blues

As it steps from the stage to the page, the poetry of Q.R. Hand never stops testifying. That the poet has led and continues to lead a full life in a real world crammed with real ignorance as well as actual light these trembling pages make clear. In the title poem of this exciting collection, the poet asks a question: "how do we know the real robert johnson /

met the real devil at the real cross roads / just 'cause he says so and his blues intone scripture for the 21st century". Like a Mobius strip but also like a DNA strand, Q's heaven and hell twist and stick and wrap them-selves around another: a cool but sweaty doo-wop dance pair, coupled to outlast the night. The poems in this book - as they whisk and yank and ease you through "that certain place at / that certain time" - speak directly to the body that houses heart, mind and soul. As they eyeball human cruelty, greed, delusion and color prejudice, dogma of any stripe (campus or street-triggered), poverty, social injustice, science and social philosophy, time as history and time as time, personal geography (Brook-lyn, Harlem, Oakland, San Francisco Bay), love's unchartable behavior and misbehavior - these tough, caring, wayward poems take it all and everything. Forever at play in the fields of the word, Q.R. Hand is a homegrown American original. Place this book to your ear and hear: "All those beautiful fine / all those fine / all those who spread their love along the line / that stretches through heart beat and heart ache".

-Al Young

Poet Laureate of California