Fr. 23.90

Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water - Poems

English · Paperback / Softback

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Description

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A debut collection of lyric poems interrogating the generational implications of the Great Migration to Northern California. 
Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water, a debut collection by E. Hughes, marries personal narrative with historical excavation to articulate the intricacies of Black familial love, life, and pain. Tracing the experiences of a southern Black family, their migration to the San Francisco Bay area, and the persistent anti-Blackness there (despite the state’s insistence that it is/was not involved in the US’ projects of imperialism or chattel slavery), Hughes illuminates the intersections of history, grief, and violence.
At the book’s heart is “The Accounts of Mammy Pleasant,” a persona poem written from the perspective of the formerly enslaved abolitionist and financier Mary Ellen Pleasant who is thought to have helped fund John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. Alongside this historical account, Hughes deftly weaves in the story of a contemporary Black family navigating the generational trauma resulting from the Great Migration: domestic violence and racialized violence, familial love and loyalty, the work of parenting, and the work of being a child. Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water reveals in its pages that, while many things have changed over time, ultimately the question of what “freedom” meant and looked like for Black people in the early 20th century retains the same murkiness and contradictions for Black people today. 


List of contents

BLACK WOMEN STANDING ANKLE-DEEP IN PACIFIC WATER

1

I RAN UNTIL I COULD NO LONGER

AFTER A BEATING 

RIPPLING THROUGH THE DARK

PORTRAIT OF MY FATHER

TRIPTYCH

RUPTURE IN MEMORY

EVEN NOW

NEGLECT OR BAPTISM LISTICLE

I CALLED HOME IN JANUARY 

BECKWOURTH PASS 

AS HER FEET TAP THE BRASS PEDALS

APORIA

2

THE ACCOUNTS OF MAMMY PLEASANT



HISTORIOGRAPHY 

MEET CUTE IN REDWOOD CITY

BAD HABIT

MUST HAVE LEFT ITS MARK—

ROUTINE

BARBERSHOP

MEET CUTE IN MENLO PARK

MY MOTHER AT TWENTY-ONE

THE NIGHT IS AN ERUPTION OF NEBULAS 

HUSBAND HOME FROM THE MARINES 

FAMILY LORE

FUNERAL

IN SAN JOSE, WE SLICED TOMATOES

ELEGY 

EVEN NOW—

FORGIVENESS PANTOUM

IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF HOME, THE ROAD

OUR PAST BOWED LIKE THE BRANCHES OF A MADRONE TREE

EPILOGUE 

BIRTHS AND DEATHS: A CHRONOLOGY

NOTES

About the author










E. Hughes’ poems have been published or are forthcoming in The Rumpus, Guernica, Poet Lore, Indiana Review, and Gulf Coast Magazine—among others. They are a Cave Canem fellow and have been a finalist for the 2021 Elinor Benedict Poetry Prize, longlisted for the 2021 Granum Fellowship Prize, and a semifinalist of the 2022 and 2023 92Y Discovery Contest. In 2021, they received their MFA+MA from the Litowitz Creative Writing Program at Northwestern University. Currently, Hughes is a PhD student in Philosophy at Emory University studying black aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and poststructuralism.


Summary

A debut collection of lyric poems interrogating the generational implications of the Great Migration to Northern California. 

Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water, a debut collection by E. Hughes, marries personal narrative with historical excavation to articulate the intricacies of Black familial love, life, and pain. Tracing the experiences of a southern Black family, their migration to the San Francisco Bay area, and the persistent anti-Blackness there (despite the state’s insistence that it is/was not involved in the US’ projects of imperialism or chattel slavery), Hughes illuminates the intersections of history, grief, and violence.

At the book’s heart is “The Accounts of Mammy Pleasant,” a persona poem written from the perspective of the formerly enslaved abolitionist and financier Mary Ellen Pleasant who is thought to have helped fund John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. Alongside this historical account, Hughes deftly weaves in the story of a contemporary Black family navigating the generational trauma resulting from the Great Migration: domestic violence and racialized violence, familial love and loyalty, the work of parenting, and the work of being a child. Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water reveals in its pages that, while many things have changed over time, ultimately the question of what “freedom” meant and looked like for Black people in the early 20th century retains the same murkiness and contradictions for Black people today. 

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