The fourth remarkable collection from one of America's finest African American poets. Lyrical, jazz-infused explorations of the tensions of modern womanhood suffuse the richly-patterned poetry of Alexander in this beautiful collection. With rhythms almost Whitmanesque in construction and tone, Alexander creates a new tradition of African American beat writing, informed by jazz and sonnet, as vivid and varied as the histories of the slaves who came to her native land. In persona poems, riffs, songs, elegies and a sequence of ars poetica form the basis of an anthology affirmgin her place as one of America's most lively and gifted writers.