Second Nature

Winner of the 23rd annual Poulin Prize

Chaun Ballard’s gripping debut collection weaves childhood experiences, historical events, and family stories into a living tapestry of memory that celebrates the landscape of Black America, both rural and urban.

Riddled with the ghostly voices of family and friends, Second Nature is fearless in its wrestling with America’s fractured past and troubled present. In these poems, W.E.B. DuBois and Fredrick Douglass have a conversation, Michael Brown medita...