The Black Automaton

Poetry. African American Studies. Winner of the National Poetry Series, selected by Catherine Wagner. From ambivalent animals thriving after Katrina to party chants echoing in a burning city, THE BLACK AUTOMATON troubles rubble, cobbling a kind of life. In this collection bodies at risk seek renewal through violence and fertility, history and myth, flesh and radios. "First, you have to see Douglas Kearney's visual poems, which cheekily diagram cultural memes as if they were parts of speech (as they are). THE BLACK AUTOMATON has its share of sharp, tender lyrics, too . . . these exploit the political possibilities of puns and the way meanings hinge on inexact resemblance. Kearney's poems tweak and skewer pop culture and literary sources from Paul Laurence Dunbar to T.S. Eliot to traditional ballads and blues . . . Kearney's work turns poetic and cultural conventions disquietingly inside out"--Catherine Wagner.

From ambivalent animals thriving after Katrina to party chants echoing in a burning city, The Black Automaton troubles rubble, cobbling a kind of life. In this collection, bodies at risk seek renewal through violence and fertility, history and myth, flesh and radios.

"Kearney's innovative new collection makes me tremble like a 'mouth and mind full of fish hooks.'"

--Terrance Hayes

Douglas Kearney's work as a poet, performer and librettist has been featured in many venues in print, in-the-flesh and in digital code. His first book, Fear, Some, was published in 2006. In 2008, he was honored with a Whiting Writers Award. He lives in the Valley with his wife and teaches at California Institute of the Arts. For more info, visit www.douglaskearney.com.