Distributed for Oberlin College Press
Blood Hyphen
It’s rare for a first book to demonstrate the confidence and distinctive voice of Blood Hyphen. Through the publication of individual poems in journals over several years, readers have become aware of Kenny Williams as a strikingly original writer, but the range and depth of his achievement in this collection are remarkable. Williams handles big concerns—faith, hurricanes, history, the conundrum of the body—with sly humor, assurance, and poise, instantly establishing himself as a mature and memorable presence.
Table of Contents
About the Author • At the Pyramids • Capsule • The Infant • Alive and Dead • The Courtship • The Creature in Mourning for Its Mate • Nature Theory • Enter Lilith, in Her Garden • Memoir of Creation • Sugar Blues • Tough Room • Palace of Illusions • Bled to the Edges • The Hurricane • On the Feast Day of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist • Lincoln in the Holy Land • Simon of Cyrene • Samuel Butler • Sorry to Ask • Concrete Poem • Not on the Lips • Up and Over • Blood Hyphen • Work and Word • Clear and Copious • Applause • Read Me All the Books • School of Practical Dissection • In Pleading • In Boyce • There’s a Whale Aground at Wijk aan Zee • There’s a Rooster Aboard the Battleship • Rosemary Lamb • The Lesser Gods of Earth • The Minotaur • The Tortoise • The Hummingbird • The Raccoon • Pearls Before Swine • Filler Material • The House with Two Front Doors • Operation Daily Bread • Robert Frost Embarks on Goodwilll Tour of Soviet Republics •Ars Apologia • My Hero • House on Fire: McLean, Virginia • The Caravan • Soak the Bloke • Note on Spurious Sources • Fixing Miss Becky’s Bottom • Cadaver in a Landscape • The Sunbath • Cold Nest • Nothing Else • Jonah’s Gourd • Goat Shack • Night Job • Wordsworth • Dawn on Grace Street • Book Report • Late Riser • Neighborhood • The Pedestal • The Mirror • First Man on Earth • Choking Baby • Selected Silences • Acknowledgments •