Aurora Americana

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"For the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets, a new collection of poems that explore questions of exile and return. In this collection of poems, Myronn Hardy reflects on the nature of power and history, on scales both intimate and broad, using a range of poetic forms and genres, such as the ghazal, the sestina, the sonnet sequence, and the elegy. He meditates on the recent past of the United States, drawing on the deadly "Unite the Right" march in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Trump presidency, and Civil War history, but more often on smaller events: momentary encounters across racial and national barriers; a screening of Black Panther in Portugal for a predominantly white audience; memories and images from his time teaching in Francophone Africa; the death of an aunt poisoned by pesticides sprayed from a plane over farmland. Several other poems grapple with the writings and legacy of the Martiniquais psychiatrist and political philosopher Frantz Fanon. Taken together, these diverse explorations create a portrait of a precarious national moment, and of the troubling influence of American history on the world"--