"David Mills' BONEYARN; about New York's African Burial Ground--America's oldest and largest slave cemetery--conducts a heart wrenching yet historically meticulous excavation of America's contradictory allegiance to freedom and slavery; equality and racial hatred. Whether speaking about or through the voices of nameless servants or chimney sweeps; Mills combines a novelist's love of character with a poet's pitch perfect ear for idiom and eye for unforgettable detail. The imagination at work in this remarkable book is humane; unflinching; erudite and utterly moving. In its wide range of styles and voices--its empathy and outrage--BONEYARN is a profoundly American work that enlightens and chastens; laments and affirms or finds in lamentation a complicated form of affirmation. A marvelous achievement."--Alan Shapiro
BIO: Mr. Mills holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and an MA from New York University. He’s published four collections, The Dream Detective, The Sudden Country, After Mistic and Boneyarn (New York Slavery poems). His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Brooklyn Rail, Colorado Review, Crab Orchard Review Jubilat, Callaloo, Obsidian, The Common, Brooklyn Rail, Aloud: Live from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and Fence. He has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Breadloaf, The American Antiquarian Society, Arts Link, Washington College, the Lannan Foundation and the Pan African Literary Forum. He lived in Langston Hughes’ landmark Harlem home for three years and wrote the audio script for Macarthur-Genius-Award Winner Deborah Willis’ curated exhibition: Reflections in Black:100 Years of Black Photography. The Juilliard School of Drama and Urban Stages commissioned and produced a play by Mr. Mills. He has also recorded his poetry on ESPN and RCA Records. As an actor he performs a one-person show of the works of Langston Hughes and was in the opera Robeson.
Date: Saturday, June 11, 2022
Time: 2:00pm - 3:00pm
Time Zone: Eastern Time - US & Canada (change)
Location: Community Room
Branch: Trumbull Library
Audience:
Adults All Ages Seniors Teens
Categories: Author Talk Poetry
Original source can be found here.
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