I Am the Most Dangerous Thing, a debut collection by poet Candace Williams, was published this spring by Alice James. William uses erasure in order to be fully seen. They expertly use other poetic forms—such as the bop and sonnet——but truly shine when they make poems by whiting out texts. A poem about the Black Panthers is made from a 1902 New York Times article about a panther who escapes the Bronx Zoo. They use their erasure powers to recast Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness and The Congo Diary; a 1906 New York Times article in which a white man has acquired a “dwarf” as a valet; a 1907 New York Times article in which a ghost is supposedly troubling Blacks in Brooklyn; and the 1996 Supreme Court decision saying that pretextual stops are not a violation of the Constitution. Candace Williams makes their political poems by showing their readers overt white supremacy as well as what is buried and what can be exposed. Williams is a poet to watch!
Congratulations, Candace!
Comments