Published in 2013 by Persea Books, Mitchell Douglas’s autobiographical second collection \blak\ \al-fe bet\: Poems blends personal, American, and Southern history, with elegy and praise. It is a collection rich in place and family.
There’s the way he misses his grandmother, Mamie Lee, the matriarch of his family, “like an ache” - something she used to say to him and the rest of her grandchildren (The Poets Weave). His grandparents were sharecroppers in Alabama and as a child, Douglas often took the train from Louisville to visit them (“Writing Home” - Louisville Magazine).
There’s the way he misses his grandmother, Mamie Lee, the matriarch of his family, “like an ache” - something she used to say to him and the rest of her grandchildren (The Poets Weave). His grandparents were sharecroppers in Alabama and as a child, Douglas often took the train from Louisville to visit them (“Writing Home” - Louisville Magazine).
Tallahatchie from David Flores on Vimeo.
There are poems that evoke history - the way “Tallahatchie” weaves together Douglas's teaching of Marilyn Nelson’s A Wreath for Emmett Till (a crown of sonnets) with his experience following a white pickup truck with Mississippi plates during a lightning storm while grief, anger, sorrow, and determination rise inside him - “no cotton gin fans, no barbed wire clues, just my pen...living and mourning at 30 MPH.” The poem’s close - “the classroom, no safer” - is one that will spark reflection and discussion.
Douglas also introduces a new six-line form: the fret, of which there are three in the collection.
Echoing the blues theme of his persona collection about Donny Hathaway, Cooling Board, the fret builds on the visual framework of a guitar's neck. Each line begins with the letter of the corresponding string (EADGBE), and vertical caesuras break the lines into three parts, as in this excerpt from “The Sorrows (A Fret in Three Chords)":
Douglas also introduces a new six-line form: the fret, of which there are three in the collection.
Echoing the blues theme of his persona collection about Donny Hathaway, Cooling Board, the fret builds on the visual framework of a guitar's neck. Each line begins with the letter of the corresponding string (EADGBE), and vertical caesuras break the lines into three parts, as in this excerpt from “The Sorrows (A Fret in Three Chords)":
With \blak\ \al-fe bet\, Douglas, a founding member of Affrilachian poets, offers readers personal connections and teachers curriculum connections. Maurice Manning calls it “a book of profound grief,” while Patricia Smith says “every line is threaded with funk and ferocity.”
To hear Douglas read his poems, listen to the related The Poets Weave podcast on Indiana public radio. There’s also a teacher’s guide available for the book by Marilyn Nelson that Douglas references in “Tallahatchie”.
To hear Douglas read his poems, listen to the related The Poets Weave podcast on Indiana public radio. There’s also a teacher’s guide available for the book by Marilyn Nelson that Douglas references in “Tallahatchie”.
