Blue-Tail Fly
Vievee Francis
Made in Michigan Writers Series
Price: $15.95
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“Such a welcome debut, these colloquies of race and nation, relations and place. Francis frees from the hush grip of time the voices of slave and citizen-poet, old presidents and foot soldiers. A reliable witness to history and the moment, Vievee Francis is the real thing: a poet with something to say and something worth listening to.”
—Thomas Lynch, author of Booking Passage, Grimalkin & Other Poems, and Still Life in Milford
“The great thing about Blue-Tail Fly is that it does not contain any ûller; it is essential reading and an essential series of poems. In lines that respect the freedom and limitations of prosody, these poems at-tempt their own truth and invention, giving themselves away to the reading experience the way contemporary art should, as cultural power objects. This book is governed by the imagination’s nation of historical control; it is an honest repair guide for everyone’s American home.”
—Thomas Sayers Ellis, associate professor, Case Western Reserve University, and author of The Maverick Room
“Francis humanizes the plight of all who follow orders, demystiûes the code of ethics of those who command both secular and spiritual armies, and balances the inequities of race as well as gender: all within the context of personal narratives played out on the larger canvas of American identity. Blue-Tail Fly is an enchanting effort, one that pro-vides a much-needed national framework for a greater understanding of reconciliation.”
—Anthony Butts, author of Little Low Heaven, winner of the Poetry Society of America’s 2004 William Carlos Williams Award for best book of poetry
“This remarkable debut gives voice to the lives and the losses endured in the wake of U.S. imperialism, lives and losses that resonate to this day. And these eloquent, clear-eyed, compassionate poems inspire us, like the blue-tail ûy, to continue our efforts to unseat the masters of war.”
—Ted Pearson, author of Evidence: 1975–1989, Planetary Gear, and Songs Aside: 1992–2002