Faster Than Light: New and Selected Poems, 1996-2011

by Marilyn Nelson

Conjuring numerous voices and characters across oceans and centuries, Faster Than Light explores widely disparate experiences through the lens of traditional poetic forms. This volume contains a selection of Marilyn Nelson s new and uncollected poems as well as work from each of her lyric histories of eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century African American individuals and communities, and The Cachoeira Tales, a long riff on Chaucer s Canterbury Tales. Poems include the stories of historical figures like Emmett Till, the fourteen-year-old boy lynched in 1955, and the inhabitants of Seneca Village, an African American community razed in 1857 for the creation of Central Park. Bivouac in a Storm tells the story of a group of young soldiers, later to become known as the Tuskegee Airmen, as they trained near Biloxi, Mississippi, marching in summer heat / thick as blackstrap molasses, under trees / haunted by whippings. Later pieces range from the poet s travels in Africa, Europe, and Polynesia, to poems written in collaboration with Father Jacques de Foiard Brown, a former Benedictine monk who becomes the subject of Nelson s playful fictional fantasy sequence, Adventure-Monk Both personal and historical, these poems are grounded in quotidian detail but reach toward spiritual and moral truths.

Genres: Poetry

176 pages, Paperback

First published November 12, 2012

About the author

Marilyn Nelson is the author of many acclaimed books for young people and adults, including CARVER: A LIFE IN POEMS, a Newbery Honor Book and Coretta Scott King Honor Book, and A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL, a Printz Honor Book and Coretta Scott King Honor Book. She also translated THE LADDER, a picture book by Halfdan Rasmussen. She lives in East Haddam, Connecticut.

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Reviews

[Virginia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a spectacular collection. Nelson is a virtuoso of form and her experiments with rhyme allow her to tackle extremely demanding schemes with apparent effortlessness over incredible line counts. I recommend this to anyone who thinks they may enjoy contemporary poetry that has a respect for tradition.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up after hearing Nelson read some of her work at this year’s On Being gathering. Many of the poems in this collection give voice to real or imagined historical figures, which I enjoyed. I found some of the work a little uneven, but the highs are very high—“A Wreath for Emmett Till” and “Faster Than Light” alone make the book more than worthwhile. Those are poems that “take the top of my head off,” to paraphrase Dickinson.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many beautiful poems. So much food for thought. So glad to be introduced to her writing.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of poems accessible to everyone. This was a collection across other collected works and the highlights include:

From the freedom business
From Seneca village
Carver: a life in poems
Cachieria tales

To the confederate dead
The truceless wars