"Johnson's Red Summerstartles and impresses with its sheer range of vision, at one moment giving us a hushed, confessional poem, at another a poem of public, political consciousness. Red Summergives us the stirring debut of a restorative new American voice."-Carl Phillips

This haunting debut collection explores a rash of race riots that swept the United States during the summer of 1919. With a tender lyrical quality, reminiscent of the blues, Johnson moves through trauma and personal catastrophe to champion the endurance of the human spirit. These poems are underscored by music so unsettling they leave the voices of the dead lingering in the ear.

"Burlesque"

Watch the fire undress him,

how flame fingers each button,

rolls back his collar, unzips him

without sweet talk or mystery.

See how the skin begins to gather

at his ankles, how it slips into

the embers, how it shimmers

beneath him, unshapen, iridescent,

as candlelight on a dark negligee.

Come, look at him, at all his goods,

how his whole body becomes song,

an aria of light, a psalm's kaleidoscope.

Listen as he lets loose an opus,

night's national anthem, the tune

you can't name, but can't stop humming.

There, he burns brilliant as a blue note.

Amaud Jamaul Johnsonis a former Wallace E. Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His poems have appeared in New England Review, Rivendell, Poetry Daily, and other journals.

Amaud Jamaul Johnsonis a former Wallace E. Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. His poems have appeared in New England Review, Rivendell, Poetry Daily, From the Fishouse, and other journals. He teaches creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This haunting debut collection explores a rash of race riots that swept the United States during the summer of 1919. With a tender lyrical quality reminiscent of the blues, Johnson moves through trauma and personal catastrophe to champion the endurance of the human spirit.

Amaud Jamaul Johnson teaches creative writing at University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1998, he received a Master of Professional Studies in African American Studies at Cornell University. He has received scholarships from the Hurston/ Wright Foundation and Bread Loaf Writers'Conference. He was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Astoundingly, this is his first book.