Dangerous Goods
WINNER OF THE MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD
From the poet whose stunning debut was praised as "transcendent" by Kevin Young and "steadily confident" by Carl Phillips, Dangerous Goods tracks its speaker throughout North America and abroad, illuminating the ways in which home and place may inhabit one another comfortably or uncomfortably--or both, simultaneously.
From the Bahamas, London, and Cairo to Bemidji, Minnesota, and Milledgeville, Georgia, Sean Hill interweaves the contemporary with the historical, and explores with urgency the relationships among travel, migration, alienation, and home. Here, playful "postcard" poems addressed to Nostalgia and My Third Crush Today sit alongside powerful reflections on the immigration of African Americans to Liberia during and after the era of slavery. Such range and formal innovation make Hill's second collection both rare and exhilarating. Part shadowbox, part migration map, part travelogue-in-verse, Dangerous Goods is poignant, elegant, and deeply moving.
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--The Rumpus Advance Praise for Dangerous Goods "Measuring the 'distance between desires' and the fear and possibilities of displacement, Sean Hill's brilliant new book will make your heart skip 'like those flat stones that kiss the skin / of the pond and fly off again.' Where Hill's first book was an evocation of his Georgia homeplace, Dangerous Goods travels widely and well, from nineteenth-century Liberia to present day Minnesota, from 'Blacks on Boats' to postcards written to nostalgia and regret. Channeling Richard Hugo and Jay Wright, Hill's poignant, pointed poetry is a divining rod, knowing well that the dark is 'an ocean for us all.'"
--Kevin Young "Sean Hill is a fastidious thinker. His poetry takes the facts and figures of history and weaves all of us into its fabric. His imagination soars like a long-winged ancient bird. We ride on his back on every page looking out over the territory of his mind, a tenacious wise flight, worth the wind."
--Nikky Finney, National Book Award winner Praise for Blood Ties & Brown Liquor "Steadily confident, smart, and surprising." --Carl Phillips "Deeply moving." --Edward Hirsch "Formally various, richly textured." --Mark Doty "[A] transcendent debut." --Kevin Young "Hill's book gave me more hope for American poetry than any other book I read last year." --Jason Koo "A major new voice in American poetry." --Atlanta Journal-Constitution
