Velvet: Poems

An exposed and exposing collection of poetry on inherited trauma, chronic illness, and the American South

Velvet, the second full-length collection from award-winning poet William Fargason, explores chronic illness, patriarchal abuse, intergenerational trauma, and racial inequality in the American South. Its speaker moves through the generations that preceded him to understand himself, and to heal from traumas both inherited and lived. As part of that heritage, the speaker confronts a famil...