In this Book
- How God Ends Us: Poems
- Book
- 2012
- Published by: University of South Carolina Press
- Series: South Carolina Poetry Book Prize
Poetic conversations with a God whose omnipotence brings both peace and uncertainty
DéLana R. A. Dameron searches for answers to spiritual quandaries in her first collection of poems, How God Ends Us, selected by Elizabeth Alexander as the fourth annual winner of the South Carolina Poetry Book Prize. Dameron's poetry forms a lyrical conversation with an ominous and omnipotent deity, one who controls all matters of the living earth, including death and destruction. The poet's acknowledgement of the breadth of this power under divine jurisdiction moves her by turns to anger, grief, celebration, and even joy. From personal to collective to imagined histories, Dameron's poems explore essential, perennial questions emblemized by natural disasters, family struggles, racism, and the experiences of travel abroad. Though she reaches for conclusions that cannot be unveiled, her investigations exhibit the creative act of poetry as a source of consolation and resolution.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xi-x
- I
- All Hallows’ Eve
- pp. 5-6
- It Is Written
- pp. 7-8
- Body, an Elegy
- pp. 9-10
- Oiling the Joints
- pp. 11-24
- The Last Touch
- pp. 12-25
- Backseat Savior
- pp. 15-16
- Black Saw-Wing
- pp. 17-30
- On Seeking the Other 2/5 Up North
- pp. 18-31
- Meditation
- pp. 19-20
- Questions from the Jamaican Children
- pp. 21-34
- Ad in the Chicago Defender
- pp. 22-35
- The Leaving
- pp. 23-36
- Consider This
- pp. 24-26
- II
- Excavation
- pp. 29-42
- Inheritance
- pp. 30-43
- Underneath the Brown
- pp. 32-45
- I Heard It, Once
- pp. 33-34
- Parable of the Hungry Missionary
- pp. 35-48
- To the Man Whose Name Is “Paradise”
- pp. 36-37
- The City of Discarded Umbrellas
- pp. 38-51
- Even the Clouds Came to Gather
- pp. 39-52
- Heartland of Columbia Nursing Home
- pp. 40-53
- Israelites
- pp. 41-42
- Transfiguration of Jesus in Jamaica
- pp. 43-44
- Lynching Mobs
- pp. 49-50
- Tree’s Memory
- pp. 51-52
- Prelude to Death
- pp. 53-66
- Requiem for the Gulf Coast
- pp. 54-67
- Buff Bay, Jamaica
- pp. 55-68
- Too Late to Uncapture
- pp. 56-69
- III
- Mala Is for Meditation
- pp. 61-62
- Landslide in La Jolla
- pp. 63-64
- Ode to the Camel-Hair Brush
- pp. 66-79
- Closer to Knowing
- pp. 67-68
- Portrait of a Seafarer
- pp. 69-70
- The Body as a House
- pp. 71-84
- The Space Between
- pp. 72-85
- The Red Thread
- pp. 73-74
- How Quickly the Sun Comes
- pp. 75-76
- Wednesday Night Fish Fry
- pp. 77-90
- Thursday Morning
- pp. 78-91
- Joe Turner’s Come
- pp. 79-92
- No Longer Ashamed
- pp. 80-93
- This Sacrifice, This Love
- pp. 82-83