Allen's extraordinary verbal energy is contagious to the point of shouting.

The drive of Jeffery Renard Allen's new poems comes from music; blues, jazz, and even hip-hop. The idiom, which draws on African and Caribbean myth, African-American folk lore, street talk and night whispers, is as capable of meditative reflection and cultural speculation as it is of matters of self and identity. There is an awareness throughout these poems of Black history, of "the shackles of the old," and of the confining urban present: "the shackles of the new." All this is combined with a sense of the saving graces in poetry, music, art, and film; of vision, dance and song.

An audio file of the author reading the text of the book is downloadable for a nominal fee.

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