Spectral Evidence: Poems (HC) (2024)

Elegant, profound, and intoxicating--Spectral Evidence, Gregory Pardlo's first major collection of poetry after winning the Pulitzer Prize for Digest, moves fluidly among considerations of the pro-wrestler Owen Hart; Tituba, the only Black woman to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials; MOVE, the movement and militant separatist group famous for its violent stand-offs with the Philadelphia Police Department ("flames rose like orchids . . . blocks lay open like egg cartons"); and more.

At times challenging and at other times warm, inviting, and deeply personal ("it comes down to this: protecting every breath"), Spectral Evidence forces us to consider how we think about devotion, beauty and art; about the criminalization and death of Black lives; about justice, and how these have been inscribed into our present, our history, and the Western canon: "the forensic dreamer / . . . / . . . my art would be a mortician's / paints."