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This is the second volume of a trilogy (the first was
The Plum Flower Dance) in which Weaver analyzes his life, striving to become the ideal poet. In
The Government of Nature, Afaa Michael Weaver explores the trauma of his childhood--including sexual abuse--using a "cartography and thematic structure drawn from Chinese spiritualism." Weaver is a practitioner of Daoism, and this collection deals directly with the abuse in the context of Daoist renderings of nature as metaphor for the human body.
Winner of the 2014 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
About the author
Afaa Michael Weaver is the author of numerous poetry collections, including
Timber and Prayer The Indian Pond Poems;
My Father's Geography;
The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985 to 2005;
The Government of Nature, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; and
City of Eternal Spring, winner of the Phyllis Wheatley Book Award. He is alumnae professor of English at Simmons College in Boston. Weaver is the recipient of an NEA fellowship, a Pew fellowship, four Pushcart Prizes, and a Fulbright scholar appointment, among other honors. In 1998, he became the first Elder of the Cave Canem Foundation.
Summary
This is the second volume of a trilogy (the first was The Plum Flower Dance) in which Weaver analyzes his life, striving to become the ideal poet. In The Government of Nature, Afaa Michael Weaver explores the trauma of his childhood—including sexual abuse—using a "cartography and thematic structure drawn from Chinese spiritualism."
