Here Is the Sweet Hand
WINNER OF THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD IN POETRY

The poems in Here is the Sweet Hand explore solitude as a way of seeing. In particular, the speakers in francine j. harris’ third collection explore the mystique, and myth, of female loneliness as it relates to blackness, aging, landscape and artistic tradition.

The speakers in these poems are often protagonists. Against the backdrop of numerous American cities and towns, and in a time of political uncertainty, they are heroines in their quest to find logic through their own sense of the world.

The poems here are interested in the power of observation. But if there is authority in the individual versus the collective, Here is the Sweet Hand also poses questions about the source of that power, or where it may lead.

As in her acclaimed previous collections, harris’ skillful use of imagery and experimentation with the boundaries of language set the stage for unorthodox election commemoration, subway panic, zoomorphism, and linguistic battlefields. From poems in dialogue with the artistry of Toni Morrison and Charles Burnett to poems that wrestle with the moods of Frank Stanford and Ty Dolla $ign, the speakers in this book signal a turn at once inward and opening.

1133550142
Here Is the Sweet Hand
WINNER OF THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD IN POETRY

The poems in Here is the Sweet Hand explore solitude as a way of seeing. In particular, the speakers in francine j. harris’ third collection explore the mystique, and myth, of female loneliness as it relates to blackness, aging, landscape and artistic tradition.

The speakers in these poems are often protagonists. Against the backdrop of numerous American cities and towns, and in a time of political uncertainty, they are heroines in their quest to find logic through their own sense of the world.

The poems here are interested in the power of observation. But if there is authority in the individual versus the collective, Here is the Sweet Hand also poses questions about the source of that power, or where it may lead.

As in her acclaimed previous collections, harris’ skillful use of imagery and experimentation with the boundaries of language set the stage for unorthodox election commemoration, subway panic, zoomorphism, and linguistic battlefields. From poems in dialogue with the artistry of Toni Morrison and Charles Burnett to poems that wrestle with the moods of Frank Stanford and Ty Dolla $ign, the speakers in this book signal a turn at once inward and opening.

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Here Is the Sweet Hand

Here Is the Sweet Hand

by francine j. harris
Here Is the Sweet Hand

Here Is the Sweet Hand

by francine j. harris

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Overview

WINNER OF THE 2020 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD IN POETRY

The poems in Here is the Sweet Hand explore solitude as a way of seeing. In particular, the speakers in francine j. harris’ third collection explore the mystique, and myth, of female loneliness as it relates to blackness, aging, landscape and artistic tradition.

The speakers in these poems are often protagonists. Against the backdrop of numerous American cities and towns, and in a time of political uncertainty, they are heroines in their quest to find logic through their own sense of the world.

The poems here are interested in the power of observation. But if there is authority in the individual versus the collective, Here is the Sweet Hand also poses questions about the source of that power, or where it may lead.

As in her acclaimed previous collections, harris’ skillful use of imagery and experimentation with the boundaries of language set the stage for unorthodox election commemoration, subway panic, zoomorphism, and linguistic battlefields. From poems in dialogue with the artistry of Toni Morrison and Charles Burnett to poems that wrestle with the moods of Frank Stanford and Ty Dolla $ign, the speakers in this book signal a turn at once inward and opening.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780374602901
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date: 08/03/2021
Pages: 96
Product dimensions: 5.37(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.25(d)

About the Author

francine j. harris is the author of play dead, winner of the Lambda Literary and Audre Lorde Awards and a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her first collection, allegiance, was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery and PEN Open Book Awards. Originally from Detroit, she has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She is an associate professor of English at the University of Houston.

Table of Contents

Contents

I.

Versal

Reflections in a Pool of Hair

The Meek

Limulus Polyphemus

Ask me now and I would say

What Milkman Leaps For

Abortion

Against Storm, Against Glib Thunder

She is what I undo

The fat of the fog hovers over

Rabbit

Here is the sweet hand you always turn back on yourself

Language works over information . . .

Junebug barycente

Single Lines Looking Forward or One Monostich Past 45

Anise Swallowtail, Molting

II.

I won’t beg.

Sonata in F Minor, K.183: Allegro

Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 8, RV 315 “L’estate”: I. Allegro mà non molto

Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 4 in E-Flat Major, BWV 1010: IV. Sarabande

Morceaux de fantaisie, Op. 3 no.2: Prelude in C-Sharp Minor

So is we thinking up new ways to fuck, or nah.

White People Eating White Food

I cleaned the house.

Unlike my sister

Stand Up

Tardigrade 00

The Neighbor’s Buddy Through the Window

The day after 12 Years a Slave

It is a Choice (because Kanye)

Oregon Trail, Missouri

It Takes

Forestbathing (or Trees)

My hair is falling out.

That scene in Killer of Sheep when

Ablate the Suncups, not the Ice: an Incantation

Curtains

Self-Portrait as Good Samaritan

Notes

Acknowledgments

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