Rogue Hemlocks

African-American and a native of the South, Carl Martin's "Brit vernacular" asks of its reader nothing less than a total ignorance of expectation. These poems, coming after a long silence, engage Romantic tropes such as Vision, Beauty, and the Self, cheek-by-jowl with Pop madness and Modern despair, all in a cadence that is winkingly isolate, stunningly productive.