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Spectral Evidence

Poems

Author Gregory Pardlo
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Hardcover
$28.00 US
| $37.99 CAN
Knopf
On sale Jan 30, 2024 | 128 Pages | 9781524731786
Grades 9-12 + AP/IB
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LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY • A powerful meditation on Blackness, beauty, faith, and the force of law, from the beloved award-winning author of Digest and Air Traffic

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.”
“When one of America’s foremost poets publishes a collection for the first time in nearly a decade it is a major event—particularly when that poet is uniquely suited to grappling with what’s been going on in America over the past nine years…. As ever Pardlo moves through poetic registers with ease, from high to low and back again, as he witnesses the world in all its terrible beauty. From fallen heroes of professional wrestling (seriously) to this country’s infinite hostility to its Black citizens, Pardlo’s is the poetic eye (and heart) we need right now.” —Jonny Diamond, Literary Hub

"Gregory Pardlo’s exceptional third collection of poems, brilliantly explicates the way the mind is culturally programmed to deal with otherness by projecting racist and sexist fears onto that other. . . . This is the success of Spectral Evidence: Pardlo’s sensitivity, emotional intelligence, and insistence on an embodied (distinctly not spectral) treatment of race and womanhood. It is not just a book about racialized/gendered violence and its inheritance. It is not just about our national identity and the ways it is bound up in that violence. Spectral Evidence is about the self, the way it works, and the ways these histories are inscribed upon it.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“A deeply moving and thoughtful collection that points at the hurt and heart of human experience." —The Collegio

“Stunning. . . . [Pardlo] is adept at wordplay. . . . Each poem demands to be read on a granular level. . . . Form, lyricism, and imagery are expertly presented, and the result is a compelling, cohesive collection addressing timely topics. A beautiful addition to Pardlo's already impressive oeuvre.” 
—Booklist, *starred review*

“[Spectral Evidence] lays bare the flimsy foundations of America’s justice system. . . . With characteristic intelligence, Pardlo confronts uncomfortable and enduring truths.”
—Publishers Weekly, *starred review*

“Infused with a scholar’s deep knowledge of literature, art, and history. . . . [Spectral Evidence is] complex, linguistically rich, and unsparing in its analysis of both the current national psyche as well as the poet’s own.”
—Library Journal, *starred review*
© Beowulf Sheehan
GREGORY PARDLO's collection Digest won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Other honors include fellowships from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center, the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Pardlo is poetry editor at Virginia Quarterly Review and director of the MFA program at Rutgers University-Camden. His most recent book is Air Traffic, a memoir in essays. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children. View titles by Gregory Pardlo

About

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY • A powerful meditation on Blackness, beauty, faith, and the force of law, from the beloved award-winning author of Digest and Air Traffic

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.”

Reviews

“When one of America’s foremost poets publishes a collection for the first time in nearly a decade it is a major event—particularly when that poet is uniquely suited to grappling with what’s been going on in America over the past nine years…. As ever Pardlo moves through poetic registers with ease, from high to low and back again, as he witnesses the world in all its terrible beauty. From fallen heroes of professional wrestling (seriously) to this country’s infinite hostility to its Black citizens, Pardlo’s is the poetic eye (and heart) we need right now.” —Jonny Diamond, Literary Hub

"Gregory Pardlo’s exceptional third collection of poems, brilliantly explicates the way the mind is culturally programmed to deal with otherness by projecting racist and sexist fears onto that other. . . . This is the success of Spectral Evidence: Pardlo’s sensitivity, emotional intelligence, and insistence on an embodied (distinctly not spectral) treatment of race and womanhood. It is not just a book about racialized/gendered violence and its inheritance. It is not just about our national identity and the ways it is bound up in that violence. Spectral Evidence is about the self, the way it works, and the ways these histories are inscribed upon it.” —Los Angeles Review of Books

“A deeply moving and thoughtful collection that points at the hurt and heart of human experience." —The Collegio

“Stunning. . . . [Pardlo] is adept at wordplay. . . . Each poem demands to be read on a granular level. . . . Form, lyricism, and imagery are expertly presented, and the result is a compelling, cohesive collection addressing timely topics. A beautiful addition to Pardlo's already impressive oeuvre.” 
—Booklist, *starred review*

“[Spectral Evidence] lays bare the flimsy foundations of America’s justice system. . . . With characteristic intelligence, Pardlo confronts uncomfortable and enduring truths.”
—Publishers Weekly, *starred review*

“Infused with a scholar’s deep knowledge of literature, art, and history. . . . [Spectral Evidence is] complex, linguistically rich, and unsparing in its analysis of both the current national psyche as well as the poet’s own.”
—Library Journal, *starred review*

Author

© Beowulf Sheehan
GREGORY PARDLO's collection Digest won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Other honors include fellowships from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center, the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Pardlo is poetry editor at Virginia Quarterly Review and director of the MFA program at Rutgers University-Camden. His most recent book is Air Traffic, a memoir in essays. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children. View titles by Gregory Pardlo

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