World is Round

Poetry. African American Studies. Charged, visionary poems from Nikky Finney, published by InnerLight Publishing out of Atlanta, Georgia. "A poem, when it works, is a rolling realization of ideas and emotion that takes you somewhere you've never been. Nikky Finney does that for me. Every now and then, I find myself in a room with a stage and there she is, reading poems, pulling me out pf myself and bringing me home. THE WORLD IS ROUND opens all of my doors and windows and airs me out with a cold and truthful wind"--Walter Mosley. "It is 1963 and I am a Black girl / in the South. One thing is for certain: / I do not trust white men"-from "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.

The world is round : the breast of the garment measured — The squatting sun — Coda — The new medicine — Lobengula : her wall-bound child — Mean Nina — The running of the bulls — Elephantine — The undersea world of Jacques Cousteau — Ain't too proud to beg — Hurricane Beulah — The greatest show on Earth — Shark bite — Sign language — The new cotton — The girlfriend's train — Hate — Easy bake — Labor strike — My old Kentucky home : where the darkies are gay — Afro-Gregorian chant — Frog legs — Sex — The turtle suite poems — Metallurgy — Assam — A hero ain't nothing but a sandwich — The making of paper — Fishing among the learned — Charm.