The Stuff of Hollywood
The Stuff of Hollywood is a meditation on the pervasiveness of violence in America. In this book-length poem, Niki Herd relies on various modes--images, prose, lyric and documentary poems--to reflect upon the quotidian nature of gun culture, police killings, and political unrest. A busy Waffle House, a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, inside an Uber on a Chicago street, readers are placed in various "film" locations and watch as America becomes a character in its own absurd movie. In one section, excerpted language from the continuity script of D.W. Griffith's 1915 The Birth of a Nation is juxtaposed with text from the January 6 congressional hearings, suggesting a fragile line between real and engineered brutality. Herd interrogates empire and the ways in which violence is consumed and normalized. The Stuff of Hollywood is an elegy for a country that never existed beyond the screen.
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"The Stuff of Hollywood moves like a reel of film, 24 frames per second. Is it a nine o'clock news story? Is it the latest action blockbuster, full of Hollywood's ubiquitous violence? Herd's poem is book-length. It has to be, and it is powerful and evocative to its last beating line. Her disciplined approach to structure holds tension from start to finish."--Raúl Niño, Booklist STARRED REVIEW
Praise for Niki Herd
"Niki Herd's work is fresh, incisive, necessary."--Tupelo Quarterly
"Say the name Gwendolyn Brooks. Say Audre Lorde. Say Lucille Clifton. Niki Herd is basking in their echo... She is the black/woman/human we have been waiting for to unapologetically sing a socio-political poetics in which craft and attention to language is paramount within the message."--Randall Horton
"[The Language of Shedding Skin] is a debut that marks the first words of a powerful voice."--Jericho Brown
"The Language of Shedding Skin is a resolute wind song of chimes strung with steely nerves, a song winding its way through and around America, what we have been, what we are, what we can be. The poet challenges the stasis of contentment with a spellbinding beauty crafted from her will to justice. These poems will stand as they come out of the compassionate quietude of a mind that will let not let go the dream of a better state of the heart we all can have if we accept the courage she offers us. Niki Herd has taken up the charge of those before her, poets with names like Lourde and Hughes, spirits that looked into the deep well of what we can be to see the face of love."--Afaa Michael Weaver
"Niki Herd's '________, don't you weep' is a stunning poly-vocal account of violence against women. Herd stitches together a narrative of implication, potential danger, and menace, while revealing grand beauty within each delicate detail. The poems are sensual, sumptuous, and smart. Each word is purposeful, each arrangement exquisitely crafted. What a gift to us all."--Cathy Linh Che
