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“These poems (Very Early in the Life of Jerome) also read sometimes as parables. I think of Kafka’s shorter short stories when I read sentences like “Regarding mischief, of an orphanage vanished from dry land, one can say he hates the placement of dirt on top of the city, but that he loves the dirty men who are its inhabitants” (Very Early…vi). This seems to be much less about a specific city, or the specific inhabitants of that city, but about the conundrum maybe we all feel sometimes of hating the less attractive habits or behaviors of a culture, while simultaneously loving those within whom they inevitably manifest...
…Many of the poems in the book straddle this territory between the general and the specific, the metaphoric and the concrete. “Framework,” one of my favorite poems in the book, is an exploration/demonstration of the complicated and fractured structures through which one might either come to understand one’s identity, or find the task impossible. It also, however, takes up the topic of poetry or a specific kind of poem and so the relationship between self and poem becomes blurred as well. “Framework” is a space in which the odd concoctions and variations of history and memory are made visible…”
—Brett Price , Octopus Magazine
Inasmuch as rock n' roll belongs yet to the young, this is a young book. Its debut concerns are those of the youth culture inasmuch as when we are young we are closer to home, to origin, to the primal disjunctions supplied by our gaps/leaps in understanding. Huffman's poems enact a sweet mojo on the youthful territory of the hometown, of the high school, of the TV-watching-music-listening experience, and we find ourselves in the "Diamond Zones," where "Rehabilitation of/ the burned parent// in a rowboat/ a knock-kneed// the mind tries/ to find speaking [.]" A series of sporadically appearing poems with the title "Very Early in the Life of Jerome" acts as a placeholder in the reading mind for these territories, enacted as they are in the comfortable vernacular of immediate, casual speech: "When I am fourteen on the diving board, please start by saying I am fifteen and deny you were ever there.”
Endorsements:
“Jibade-Khalil Huffman issues electric lines interrupted by bursts of static. His poems are hazardous. I’d say be careful but you won’t want to be.”—Luc Sante
“With their syntactic sleight-of-hand, these poems trouble the space between history and nostalgia. This is a seriously playful and arresting new voice.”—Tracy K. Smith
From the Book:
When delivering make-up...
When delivering make-up
for the neighborhood watch association's
second annual fundraiser
for our statues restoration
I imagine I am the guidance counselor
on television's Degrassi High. Every
colored one naming Jamal
in the advice I've given
instrumental to the parent's
own wish of first a doctor
then nearly as well
to leave the house
just because
your family has seen you naked once
does not mean they want to see
you naked again on the occasion
of Dr. King's birth
which was this year the day
we handed over the packages.
My life's work concerns revealing
celebrities enabled
secret lines of the guides demise
to truth telling of the last
and last letter
in which Star Jones talks about
her man her
wedding the rumors
and the lies.
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JIBADE-KHALIL HUFFMAN was born in Detroit and grew up in Florida. His awards include the Grolier Poetry Prize. A graduate of Bard College and Brown University, he lives in New York.
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