From an award-winning poet praised for his “rhapsodic, rigorous” work (The New Yorker) comes an immersive meditation on kindship, collectivity, and environmental thought
We is a formally and thematically ambitious collection inspired by Virgil’s Georgics that examines community, the weight of history, and what we owe one another from a Black American perspective. It evolves from the personal—Bennett’s family history in New York and current life in Massachusetts—to the historical, linking the past and present through place. The collection concludes with an epic poem that traces African American life in the twentieth century through four iconic figures: George Washington Carver, George Jackson, George Taliaferro, and George Clinton. The result is a sweeping collection that affirms poetry as a technology of memory.
From an award-winning poet praised for his “rhapsodic, rigorous” work (The New Yorker) comes an immersive meditation on kindship, collectivity, and environmental thought
We is a formally and thematically ambitious collection inspired by Virgil’s Georgics that examines community, the weight of history, and what we owe one another from a Black American perspective. It evolves from the personal—Bennett’s family history in New York and current life in Massachusetts—to the historical, linking the past and present through place. The collection concludes with an epic poem that traces African American life in the twentieth century through four iconic figures: George Washington Carver, George Jackson, George Taliaferro, and George Clinton. The result is a sweeping collection that affirms poetry as a technology of memory.
