Second Nature

By: Chaun Ballard

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Synopsis: Winner of the 23rd annual Poulin Prize Chaun Ballard’s gripping debut collection weaves childhood experiences, historical events, and family stories into a living tapestry of memory that celebrates the landscape of Black America, both rural and urban. Riddled with the ghostly voices of family and friends, Second Nature is fearless in its wrestling with America’s fractured past and troubled present. In these poems, W.E.B. DuBois and Fredrick Douglass have a conversation, Michael Brown meditates on the nature of the cosmos, Johnnie Taylor’s guitar sings in sonnets, and the road Walt Whitman set out upon comes alive for a new generation. Through innovative re-imaginings of the sonnet, the pastoral, and the contrapuntal, Ballard engages with popular culture while examining the intricacies of all that is wedded together—form and content, mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, husband and wife, and a nation long dependent on created binaries that serve to maintain structures of oppression. Interspersed with quotations and inspired by the rich legacy of poets who came before him—including poet Matthew Shenoda who provides an insightful Foreword to the collection—Second Nature is a testament to interconnectedness, a love letter to the deep roots that we come from, and a reminder of the myriad ways in which one’s identity is shaped by community and country.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:: 9781960145406
Publisher:: BOA Editions Ltd.
Date of Addition:: 04/01/25
Copyrighted By:: Chaun Ballard
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Poetry, Literature and Fiction, Outdoors and Nature, Parenting and Family
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.
Foreword by:: Matthew Shenoda