0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
Elegant, profound, and intoxicating—Spectral Evidence, Gregory Pardlo’s first major collection of poetry after winning the Pulitzer Prize for Digest, moves fluidly among considerations of the pro-wrestler Owen Hart; Tituba, the only Black woman to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials; MOVE, the movement and militant separatist group famous for its violent stand-offs with the Philadelphia Police Department (“flames rose like orchids . . . / blocks lay open like egg cartons”); and more.
At times cerebral and at other times warm, inviting and deeply personal, Spectral Evidence compels us to consider how we think about devotion, beauty and art; about the criminalization and death of Black bodies; about justice—and about how these have been inscribed into our present, our history, and the Western canon: “If I could be / the forensic dreamer / . . . / . . . my art would be a mortician’s / paints.”
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
January 30, 2024 -
Formats
-
OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780593590119
- File size: 69261 KB
- Duration: 02:24:17
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
Starred review from November 20, 2023
The contemplative latest from Pulitzer winner Pardlo (for Digest) explores fear as the basis for legal judgment. As Pardlo explains in the introduction, the fear-driven imaginings used by white men to condemn those accused in the Salem witch trials have been similarly employed against nonwhite people from America’s colonial era to the present. Beginning the collection with a long poem in sections titled “The Essay on Faith,” which is structured like a legal argument the speaker is having with himself, Pardlo lays bare the flimsy foundations of America’s justice system: “Dream, the via negativa that makes freedom ring. It/ is evidence of things not seen.” Other entries play on this concept of unseen evidence, such as “Sonnet,” which reproduces a table from a study of racial biases in the medical field. The title poem evokes the language of police perpetrators of violence against people of color to show how fear of the racialized “other” can be twisted to fit any legally excusable context: “Declares that on Harvest last, the Devil in the shape of a black man/ had the most aggressive face/ that his eyes were bugging out.” With characteristic intelligence, Pardlo confronts uncomfortable and enduring truths. -
Starred review from February 1, 2025
Pulitzer Prize winner Pardlo (Digest) explores the early American judicial practice that allowed for "spectral evidence," testimony in which witnesses described being harmed by malevolent spirits. Pardlo posits that the same fear-based imaginings that convicted the accused in the Salem witch trials are used today to rationalize hate and violence directed toward women, Black and Indigenous peoples, and others who challenge patriarchy and privilege. For Pardlo, police officers' recorded statements characterizing Black individuals as looking like demons, with expressionless, bulgy eyes, are not much different from those put forth in Salem courtrooms. The poem "Spectral Evidence" opens with chillingly similar wording: "Declares that on Harvest last, the Devil in the shape of a black man / had the most aggressive face / that his eyes were bugging out." As a narrator, Pardlo offers a varied and engaging delivery, peppered with gentle exclamations and well-rendered snippets of conversations. It is an artifice-free presentation that is tailored to the content and creates the perfect backdrop for Pardlo's unapologetic, unsparing analysis. VERDICT An intricate and richly varied collection that reveals new insight with every poem that's read. Pardlo stuns with this relentless examination of race, prejudice, and fear.--Sarah Hashimoto
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-
Starred review from February 1, 2025
In this self-narrated collection, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Pardlo examines institutionalized practices that rationalize hate and violence toward people on the margins of the U.S., particularly women and Black people. As he considers memory (and misremembering), dreams, intuition, social justice, and culture, Pardlo offers an artifice-free delivery that takes listeners to the heart of his intricate, layered words. A luminous work, both intimate and interrogatory, that connects the personal to the political and the historical to the present.
Copyright 2025 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-