Thief in the Interior
A poetry collection that confronts desire, violence, racism, and homophobia with urban pressure and force.
Work Information
Polyphonic poems blur the line between harming and being harmed.
Poems grounded in urban landscapes connect the danger of desire with social violence. Within that severity sit a rich voice and a strong formal control.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Alice James Books
- Published
- 2016-01-12
- Pages
- 82 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 17.78 x 0.51 x 22.86 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781938584176
- ISBN-10
- 1938584171
- Price
- 3344 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Poetry/American
Recipient of a 2017 Whiting Award for Poetry 2017 Kate Tufts Discovery Award Winner Nominated for the 2017 NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry 2016 INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist 2017 Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award Finalist 2017 Lambda Literary Awards Winner 2017 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist 2017 Nominee for 2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry Shortlisted for Chicago Review of Books Award in Poetry One of BET’s “12 Must-Read Books for 2016” "This gorgeous debut is a 'debut' in chronology only. . . . Need is everywherein the unforgiving images, in lines so delicate they seem to break apart in the hands, and in the reader who will enter these poems and never want to leave."Adrian Matejka Phillip B. Williams investigates the dangers of desire, balancing narratives of addiction, murders, and hate crimes with passionate, uncompromising depth. Formal poems entrenched in urban landscapes crack open dialogues of racism and homophobia rampant in our culture. Multitudinous voices explore one's ability to harm and be harmed, which uniquely juxtaposes the capacity to revel in both experiences. "Epithalamium": A kiss. Train ride home from a late dinner, City Hall and document signing. Wasn't cold but we cuddled in an empty car, legal. Last month a couple of guys left a gay bar and were beaten with poles on the way to their car. No one called them faggot so no hate crime's documented. A beat down is what some pray for, a pulse left to count. We knew we weren't protected. We knew our rings were party favors, gold to steal the shine from. We couldn't protect us, knew the law wouldn't know how. Still, his beard across my brow, the burn of his cologne. When the train stopped, the people came on.
Phillip B. Williams is a Chicago, Illinois native and the author of the chapbooks Bruised Gospels (Arts in Bloom Inc. 2011) and Burn (YesYes Books, 2013). He is a Cave Canem graduate and received scholarships from Bread Loaf Writers Conference and a 2013 Ruth Lilly Fellowship. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anti-, Callaloo, Kenyon Review Online, Poetry, The Southern Review, West Branch and others. Phillip received his MFA in Writing as a Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow at the Washington University in St. Louis. He is the poetry editor of the online journal Vinyl Poetry . Phillip B. Williams is a Chicago, Illinois native and the author of the chapbooks Bruised Gospels (Arts in Bloom Inc. 2011) and Burn (YesYes Books, 2013). He is a Cave Canem graduate and received scholarships from Bread Loaf Writers Conference and a 2013 Ruth Lilly Fellowship. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anti-, Callaloo, Kenyon Review Online, Poetry, The Southern Review, West Branch and others. Phillip received his MFA in Writing as a Chancellor's Graduate Fellow at the Washington University in St. Louis. He is the poetry editor of the online journal Vinyl Poetry .
Reviews
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Williams takes on issues of race and violence with a lyric grace and innovative styling. The poems are unafraid and do not turn away from even the most difficult subjects. The fierceness comes close as a whisper and urges one to come in out of whatever other reality one might have been dawdling in. Williams sings a truth and though the song hurts, it is essential.
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Brilliant.
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My poetry book club read Phillip B. Williams' Thief in the Interior for this month's meeting. The language and imagery of the collection are rich and consistent, while the poems themselves vary in strength (to my mind). It wasn't until the 10th poem that my attention was captured - actually the 2nd part of the 10th poem, called Inheritance: Anthem. The poem is centered (captured?) within a graphic circle, and describes in second person a young Black man's encounter with a white cop. My poetry book club read Phillip B. Williams' Thief in the Interior for this month's meeting. The language and imagery of the collection are rich and consistent, while the poems themselves vary in strength (to my mind). It wasn't until the 10th poem that my attention was captured - actually the 2nd part of the 10th poem, called Inheritance: Anthem. The poem is centered (captured?) within a graphic circle, and describes in second person a young Black man's encounter with a white cop. An all too familiar story in our times, but this quiet telling, this somber ending, make the story new. The book is divided into 4 unnamed sections, the second of which is perhaps the stand-out. Each poem in it touches on the story of Rashawn Brazell, a young man whose dismembered corpse was found in a duffel bag in Brooklyn. His head was missing. The most striking poem in this section is told from the point of view of the duffel bag that held Mr. Brazell's remains. Other sections focus on poems to the poet's dead father, poems to assorted lovers, and various dark cityscapes. The world of Thief in the Interior is one where a "javelin is honeyed in a gladiator's blood" and "high rises are pleated with suicides" (from Door to a War I Never Knew); where "the earth spins and we, utterly, are spun." (from Of Contour, of Cadence); where "the sickle moon turns the sky into a man's mouth slapped sideways" (from Do-Rag). It is a world as hard, and as shimmering, as a diamond. An all too familiar story in our times, but this quiet telling, this somber ending, make the story new. The book is divided into 4 unnamed sections, the second of which is perhaps the stand-out. Each poem in it touches on the story of Rashawn Brazell, a young man whose dismembered corpse was found in a duffel bag in Brooklyn. His head was missing. The most striking poem in this section is told from the point of view of the duffel bag that held Mr. Brazell's remains. Other sections focus on poems to the poet's dead father, poems to assorted lovers, and various dark cityscapes. The world of Thief in the Interior is one where a "javelin is honeyed in a gladiator's blood" and "high rises are pleated with suicides" (from Door to a War I Never Knew); where "the earth spins and we, utterly, are spun." (from Of Contour, of Cadence); where "the sickle moon turns the sky into a man's mouth slapped sideways" (from Do-Rag). It is a world as hard, and as shimmering, as a diamond.
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This author doesn’t have the talent for what he’s trying to do. The typeface is hideous and so are the Microsoft Word 97 WordArt poems. If you really want it wait for it to be cheap used.
Related Literary Awards
- Whiting Awards Edition 32 (2017) ・Winner