Rice: Poems

Contents

Contents Foreword by Kwame Dawes ix Preface xv Acknowledgments xvii Heel–Toe The Blackened Alphabet 7 Irons at Her Feet 8 Yellow Jaundice 10 The Goodfellows Club 15 Cotton Tea 24 Harry and Jainey 26 Understudies 31 My Centipeding Self 39 Making Foots 42 Lightkeeper 45 In South Carolina: Where Black Schoolmarms Sleep 47 Black Orion 51 “God Ain’t Makin’ No More Land” 54 Thresh The Afterbirth, 1931 65 Mary Mary Quite Contrary 72 The Sound of Burning Hair 74 Dinosaur 77 Pluck 80 The Devil Is Beating His Wife 87 Eskimo 91 Acquanetta of Hollywood 94 I Have Been Somewhere 102 The Butt of the Joke 103 South Africa: When a Woman Is a Rock 109 The Ostrich 112 Brown Country 113 He Never Had It Made 121 Winnow The Turtle Ball 129 Tenderheaded 134 Living On What 138 Mae/I 140 Love Marrow 3 144 Mute 146 Permittable Thunder 148 The Vertigo 157 The Mapmaker 164 The Savoy, 1926 166 Daguerre of Negras 172 Woman Holdin’ Up All Deeze Folks 176 Rule Number One 180 The End of It 182 A Woman with Keys 184 The Rice 186 List of Photographs 189 ...