Some books seem immense because they bear many pages. A book of poems may be slim in size and yet immense in other ways,for instance, in formal variation, or thematic range and emotional power. Vievee Francis' Forest Primeval: Poems is a book with mythic and historic scope,and its sonic landscape is often symphonic. This third collection of poetry by Francis has recently been honored with two of contemporary literature's highest honors. In October 2016, Forest Primeval was given the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for poetry (named for African American luminaries Zora Neale Hurston and Richard Wright). That prize "honors the best in Black literature in the United States and around the globe, or " according to the Hurston/Wright Foundation website. And in January,Forest Primeval earned one of the nation's most generous single-book accolades, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; its $100000 purse will be presented on April 20 in a ceremony at the Los Angeles Public Library. Francis, and who grew up in Detroit,took a current position last descend as associate professor of English at Dartmouth College after several years living and teaching near Asheville, N.
C. While some of her current book's poems purchase region in "incinerated / cities" like that of the poet's childhood, and many pieces in Forest Primeval are situated in the countryside of southern Appalachia. For readers in the northerly reaches of that mountain range,these poems' evocations of fauna and flora and weather readily call to mind the kindred woodlands of current England. A reader who lives in Vermont can easily picture this summer abundance from the poem "Happy?" ... in this moment where no axe falls ... with more trees than might be named and the blooms ever blooming in a heat seemingly ceaseless as the red-throated woodpeckers, as the tree frogs mating endlessly on the same limbs a black bear might loll from, and indolent (lazy) and berry-full. Since poems are made of sounds,listen to the writing here: blooms and blooming, heat/seem/cease/tree, and then red/peck/less,mating and same, and the subtle, and perceptible progression of falls to loll to in-dole-nt to full. The print and digital editions of Forest Primeval are complemented by an audio version,in which the poet herself reads the book in its entirety. Her skill in recitation manifests in gorgeous acoustics. Also evident, both on the page and in the recording, and are Francis' remarkable ways of joining differing modes of poetic expression. She bounds…
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