Voices and Organs Playing Loudly. My Black Spell -- Don't Look That Witch in the Eye -- Afterwise, or My Father Was Ursa Minor -- Divination -- Woman among the Electric Flowers -- First Poem -- I Am Coming Home in the Afternoon -- Pride -- Darky of the Coven -- IV. The Moon -- Withdrawal in Drag -- Ode to Wearing All My Necklaces at Once -- Lipsticks -- Mother, I'm Confusing Myself with My Surroundings Again -- Nudes -- Wet Man -- Lyrics for Sex over TV Dinners -- Mail-Order Bride: Judy -- Sweet nothings1 -- Elephants on Roses -- Melancholia -- Your Amazon.com order "Latex Canine Mask-Teal" has shipped! -- R&B Facts -- The Empress -- Negro as Lighthouse -- Black Mecca -- Confessional -- III. To You Who Fit The Description -- To You Who Fit the Description -- To You Who Fit the Description -- To You Who Fit the Description -- To You Who Fit the Description -- To You Who Fit the Description -- To You Who Fit the Description -- IV. Black Art -- Black Art -- Floromancy -- Seeing a Lavender Octopus with Large Stag Antlers -- Grief -- Race Play and the Joy of Painting -- How We Sleep at Night -- Considering Another Roach by the Shower Drain -- Scorpio and Pisces -- Daisies -- Three of Swords -- Aaron with the flat butt. thin, not a good dancer -- "Love Is a Battlefield" / Pat Benatar -- Siren -- Scrying -- Airs Aboveground -- Southern Comfort -- Self-Portrait as Ocean Bed -- Transubstantiation with Pumpernickel -- Hypersigil -- Evening Prayer -- Voices and Organs Playing Loudly.
Summary:
"A collection of poems by Nicholas Goodly"-- Provided by publisher. A debut collection is at once "forged from the hurt parts of the ground," and "proof of a miracle," spinning ache and sweat and sweetness into a new model of feeling through language. Black people, queer/trans/nonbinary people, flamboyant people, lonely people, gaudy people, kind people, witches, artists, and angry people will meet themselves and each other in these pages. Amidst death and against injustice, Goodly's poems bear gifts for and from the ancestors--a necklace, a mirror, a form of offered prayer: "If there is a purpose in this life / let me wash my face in it."
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.