Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Wager

Wager

Williams, Adele Elise

Paperback

Series: Miller Williams Poetry Prize

General Poetry

ISBN10: 1682262537
ISBN13: 9781682262535
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Published: Feb 16 2024
Pages: 102
Weight: 0.80
Height: 0.20 Width: 7.20 Depth: 9.40
Language: English
Wager, Adele Elise Williams's raucous debut, celebrates the fearlessness and determination that can be wrested from strife. Early on, Williams confronts multiple challenges, both personal and communal, including persistent childhood anxieties and stunning neighborhood tragedies (Ray down the street hung / himself like just-bought bananas needing time). In the working-class communities she moves among, the poet tangles with her perceived failures as a wayward daughter, recovering addict, and skeptical scholar as she buries friends and lovers along the way. Self-possession is so hard-won in the southern gothic world of Williams's poems, no wonder the speaker here is so roaringly audacious while often taking relish in getting close to the edge: Sometimes God says YAHTZEE and I know this means / someone has won but someone has lost too - a holy man / is a gambling man, and that God of ours, / he takes bets after all. Through it all, Williams pays homage to her lineage of resilient beast women and defiantly resists any constraint as she prods her own limits.

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