In this Book
- Use Trouble
- Book
- 2010
- Published by: University of Illinois Press
- Series: Illinois Poetry Series
For decades, Michael S. Harper has written poetry that speaks with many voices. His work teems with poetry configured as awe, poetry as courtship, and poetry as elegy and homage. Infused with tales and riddles, sass and satire and surprise, Harper’s poetry takes the form of psalms, jazz experiments, soft serenades, and radical provocations.
In Use Trouble, his first major collection since Songlines in Michaeltree, Harper renews poetry as the art of taking nothing for granted. In three groups--"The Fret Cycle," "Use Trouble," and "I Do Believe in People"--he draws on his seemingly inexhaustible resources to paint, sing, sympathize, and sorrow. Here are his tributes to his father and family, his irrepressible playfulness, and his lifelong romance between poetry and music.
Table of Contents
- I. The Fret Cycle
- Fret in the Woods
- pp. 6-7
- Table Notice
- pp. 7-9
- Fret Leaves Yaddo
- p. 12
- The List: Yaddo
- p. 17
- Fret Having Survived Modernity
- pp. 19-20
- Fret Discovers the Blues, Again
- pp. 20-21
- Mt. Pleasant Local Library
- pp. 24-25
- Fret Finds the Open Field
- pp. 25-27
- II. Use Trouble
- A Photographic Guide to the City
- pp. 31-34
- Use Trouble
- pp. 34-35
- Praisesong for BB
- pp. 43-45
- Goodbye to All That
- pp. 45-46
- Public Letter: Visible Ink
- pp. 47-51
- Archives: The Public Library I
- pp. 53-56
- Archives: The Public Library II
- pp. 57-64
- Legend of Jeannie Turner
- pp. 64-66
- TCAT Serenade
- pp. 66-67
- Sherley Anne Williams: 1944–1999
- pp. 68-69
- Chloe: Black Pastoral Luminous
- pp. 69-70
- Artist on a Cellphone (Yaddo)
- pp. 73-74
- Vote (Providence)
- pp. 74-75
- Copenhagen
- pp. 77-79
- Ostseebad Ahrenshoop
- pp. 85-94
- Charlotte to Nathan
- pp. 99-100
- Notes on the Hopi
- pp. 100-101
- Critical Mass
- pp. 102-103
- Hemingway’s Iceberg
- pp. 103-104
- Saint Dolores (Phillips Exeter Academy)
- pp. 104-105
- “Days Remaining”/Bloom’s Day, Dublin
- pp. 105-106
- Freud: Lessons on Boundaries
- pp. 106-107
- George J. Makari Blues
- pp. 107-108
- Songbirds (Habitat)
- p. 109
- “Ponta de Areia” [Brazil]
- pp. 109-110
- Tagore (Nobel, 1913)
- pp. 110-111
- On Brodsky’s Collected
- p. 112
- Three Poems: October 17, 2004
- pp. 113-118
- Zen: The Trainride Home to the Welcome Table
- pp. 118-119
- The Flight Home
- pp. 120-121
- Baseball (Orb)
- pp. 122-123
- Josh Gibson (Master of National Past)
- pp. 123-124
- Look Backwards: Henry Aaron’s Hammer
- pp. 127-128
- Ray Charles Robinson Dead at 73
- pp. 130-131
- Womb of Space (Yaddo)
- pp. 132-133
- Along Came Betty
- pp. 134-136
- Repeat Button
- pp. 136-137
- Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
- p. 138
- Ernesto Victor Antonucci
- p. 140
- ‘Craft’ Talk, Vermont Studio Center
- pp. 140-142
- Joseph Santos Ileto
- pp. 145-147
- The Broke and the Unbroken
- pp. 147-148
- Jacuzzi Serenade
- pp. 148-149
- On Arrival
- pp. 150-151
- Christine Frey’s Resurrection
- pp. 151-152
- Open Studio
- p. 152
- Philip Roth
- pp. 162-163
- “American Masters: PBS” (Ralph Ellison)
- pp. 163-164
- Leonard Brown, Musician/Teacher
- pp. 165-166
- Richard Davis’s Trampolines
- pp. 166-169
- Year of the FirePig in Chinese New Year
- pp. 169-170
- Eva’s Song at the End
- pp. 177-178
- Frederick Armstrong Hetzel
- pp. 182-183
- Massey’s Ministry
- pp. 185-188
- The Tank and Its Narrators
- pp. 189-190
- The Revolutionary Garden
- pp. 192-193
- Royce Hall
- pp. 194-195
- Gwendolynian Staccato Dance
- pp. 195-196
- Spencer Trask’s Den (Yaddo)
- pp. 197-198
- “Newk” While He’s Still Alive and Playing
- pp. 201-203
- Horacescope
- pp. 203-205
- The Life of Jackie McLean
- pp. 207-208
- Blues for a Colored Singer: Milt Jackson
- pp. 209-210
- Interstate 80 Freeway Return
- pp. 210-211
- Dexter Leaps In
- pp. 214-215
- The Book on Trane
- p. 216
- A Coltrane Poem: 9 23 98
- p. 217
- Coltrane Notes on the Millennium 9 23 2000
- pp. 219-220
- Sermon on O’Meally
- pp. 220-221
- Larry Doby
- pp. 221-222
- Panhandler (New Haven)
- pp. 223-224
- Galveston: 9 8 1900
- pp. 224-225
- Notes on the Long Poem (Tuscaloosa, AL)
- pp. 225-226
- John Killens at Yaddo
- p. 227
- Haircut on the Solstice
- p. 228
- Certainties
- pp. 230-231
- Bouillabaisse
- pp. 234-235
- “Ars Poetica”
- pp. 235-236
- Bellow Berryman James Arlington Wright
- pp. 236-237
- III. I Do Believe in People
- Poem on Contents of Harper/Johnson Kin
- pp. 241-242
- Horoscope: 3 12 98
- pp. 242-244
- Horoscope: 10 3 98
- pp. 244-245
- Driving Up on Van Aken Blvd.
- pp. 245-246
- My Mother Said: For My Sister, Katherine
- pp. 246-247
- Rome, New York
- pp. 248-249
- My Aunt Ella Mae
- pp. 249-251
- Elizaville
- p. 256
- Why I Don’t Do Surveys
- pp. 261-262
- Patrice among the Elders
- pp. 264-265
- Glass (Crystal)
- p. 267
- Josh Gibson’s Bat
- pp. 273-274
- Portrait of Son at Rhinebeck Train Station
- pp. 275-276
- Mama: To Son
- p. 277
- Katherine Louise Johnson Harper
- pp. 278-280
- “Juneteenth”
- pp. 281-282
- Indispensable Meditation on the Family Tree
- pp. 282-284
- The Latin American Poem
- pp. 284-286
- When I Was a Boy
- pp. 291-293
- Pull-ups at PS 25
- pp. 293-295
- My Mother’s Bible I
- pp. 298-300
- My Mother’s Bible II
- pp. 301-302
- Caretaking Supreme
- pp. 304-306
- The Patriarch, W. Warren Harper, Circa 1938
- pp. 306-307
- Cathair on His Blackwatch Jacket
- pp. 307-308
- Manhattan Beach
- p. 308
- Meditation on Catskill Creek
- pp. 315-319
- Talk Therapy on John Milton
- pp. 319-320
- 1965 Watts Riot
- pp. 321-322
- Domestic Relations (Defendant saith)
- pp. 323-324
- The Red Dress: 12 24 65
- pp. 324-326
- The Squire of Taunton
- pp. 329-331
- Natal Visit on the Theme of Shoes
- pp. 333-334
- Forty: 6 28 06
- p. 335
- Paul Urabe [1938–2003]
- pp. 338-339
- Yaddo, Mrs. Ames and Black Men
- pp. 340-342
- Index of Titles
- pp. 343-346
Additional Information
Copyright
2008