Poetry. African American Studies. BLACK PECULIAR sketches out power dynamics and faulty assumptions in terms of race and history, media and culture, and sex and gender in highly original lines of verse. An extraordinary mixture of wit and profundity, the three long works in the collection weave the personal and the political in both ruthless and tender ways. A fiction, a chorus, a leap into chaos, an unflinching love letter and a fierce indictment–BLACK PECULIAR collages observation and lived experience through a many-voiced I as flawed and complex and unusual as the mind of the artist in the world.