BOA Editions
107 pages
October 15, 2024
Black history, cultural expression, and the natural world fuse in Janice N. Harrington’s Yard Show to investigate how Black Americans have shaped a sense of belonging and place within the Midwestern United States. As seen through the documentation of objects found within yard shows, this collection of descriptive, lyrical, and experimental poems speaks to the Black American Imagination in all its multiplicity. Harrington’s speaker is a chronicler of yesterdays, using the events of the past to center and advocate for a future that celebrates pleasure and self-fulfillment within Black communities.
Janice N. Harrington’s writing reflects her interest in cultural history, the natural world, visual arts, and African American life in the South and Midwest. Her latest book of poetry, Yard Show, grows out of her three earlier books of poems: Even the Hollow My Body Made Is Gone, The Hands of Strangers, and Primitive: The Art and Life of Horace H. Pippin. Harrington is also an award-winning children’s writer. She is a Cave Canem fellow and teaches creative writing at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.