New poems on love, family, and art from the author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden
America, A Love Story is Camille T. Dungy's powerful testament to living and loving as a Black woman and mother in today's America, and her first book of poetry in almost a decade. Piercingly honest and deeply compassionate, this poetry moves through the mounting griefs of contemporary American life with unwavering clarity. The book is part indictment, part celebration-full of gratitude, fear, resistance, and hope. Dungy explores intimacy, parenting, racism, history, and the natural world with clarity and depth. Some poems reflect on the past; others respond to the work of contemporary Black artists. Many are formally playful, including a series of 700-character poems inspired by the 700 hours of sleep a mother loses in her child's first year. Gorgeous, bright, and bold, these poems speak from the edges-between mother and child, body and earth, self and country. They hold tension and tenderness in equal measure, creating a space for love amidst uncertainty.
[sample poem]
To enter our own empty house
She was seven when we stopped using keys. One less thing to lose. Now we punch a combination. Easy, but hopefully not so easy a stranger could guess. This is where I should stop. They are bound to be angry, my beloveds. I am giving away all our secrets again. Vulnerability is the root of much fury. = I was small. A stone in the yard hid a metal case with a lid that slid like a matchbox top to reveal our key. Lifting that rock I thought of bashing someone's head. I thought of harm lurking, dressed in the body of some stranger. = Sometimes, I wrestle my daughter. I make her tiny body work itself out from under the weight I make of my own. In this way I try to teach her how it feels to break free.
