cover image Radioactive Starlings: Poems

Radioactive Starlings: Poems

Myronn Hardy. Princeton Univ., $17.95 trade paper (112p) ISBN 978-0-691-17710-6

Hardy (Kingdom), who divides his time between New York and Morocco, invites readers along as he journeys from the U.S. to Africa to the Middle East and back, ruminating on politically charged events of the past and comparing them to injustices of the present, and exploring how identity is shaped by individual memories as well as collective historical memories. He makes constant references, both popular and obscure, to world history and politics, art and literature, and even sporting events. For example, in “Walking Jerusalem,” Hardy writes with a nod to Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: “Among ashen stone I’m reading ‘In Jerusalem.’/ Reading a line a stanza then walking/ about the gray.” Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, notable for writing under numerous heteronyms, appears in various locations in the form of a starling. Hardy achieves the greatest emotional impact when he utilizes simple, clean, direct imagery to articulate complicated themes. In “The Silence in Sunlight,” he reflects on the viral photograph of Iesha Evans’s arrest while protesting the shooting of Alton Sterling in New Orleans: “Silence as armor her armor after numbness./ Black gun to black body in black cotton.” This is an illuminating, if occasionally difficult, collection. (Nov.)