Mercy Seat
9780226764061
Mercy Seat
Bruce Smith’s new collection of poems presents a formidable vision of growing up "white male North American" in the fifties and sixties. With poems whose subjects range from football to politics to jazz, Mercy Seat is a book by a native son who has survived the brokenness of his country to sing a paradoxical new song for a new age.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Against the Maker
Hostile Witness
Alive
Self-Portrait as Foreign Policy
Changeling
He Was Free
The Sandwiches
American Lunch
Neruda in Ceylon, 1929
Mercy
When You’re Asleep beside Me, You’re In
My Name in Three Languages
Salt Talks
Blue Letters
The Either Orchestra
Self-Portrait with Raptures
Self-Portrait as Ornette Coleman
The Real Protagonist Is Light
Complaint
Blue Cornflowers Framing the Resurrection
Something of Consolation
Mercy Seat
Scenes from a Puppet Play
Voice of Aretha in Italy
Crossover
In the City of Brotherly Love
Narcissus in the Maritime Provinces
Lavish
Prospero in Milan
Against the Maker
Hostile Witness
Alive
Self-Portrait as Foreign Policy
Changeling
He Was Free
The Sandwiches
American Lunch
Neruda in Ceylon, 1929
Mercy
When You’re Asleep beside Me, You’re In
My Name in Three Languages
Salt Talks
Blue Letters
The Either Orchestra
Self-Portrait with Raptures
Self-Portrait as Ornette Coleman
The Real Protagonist Is Light
Complaint
Blue Cornflowers Framing the Resurrection
Something of Consolation
Mercy Seat
Scenes from a Puppet Play
Voice of Aretha in Italy
Crossover
In the City of Brotherly Love
Narcissus in the Maritime Provinces
Lavish
Prospero in Milan