Thou

Poetry. African American Studies. Following the successful reception of her first book, THE SHINING MATERIAL, comes Aisha Sasha John's THOU, a powerful collection of two long poems exploring the erotics of time and the elasticity and capaciousness of the lyric you. THOU is a pilgrimage--in which heaven is sought through earth, and relation is material. With wit and a robust candour, THOU does its thinking so exuberantly as to be a dance, and will provoke comparisons to such acclaimed poets as Anne Carson (especially Glass, Irony and God) and Alice Notley.

"Aisha Sasha John's THOU re-plays that archaic pronoun as a constantly present movement and rhythm of attention: the suddenness of the interpolative 'moment.' These lines of poetry 'shake... a little' as the 'I' narrates and choreographs a monologue of the self in motion; each page is the dance floor and John's words break through the 'I-as-you' with both the foreignicity of anticipation and the reflection of grace."--Fred Wah

"THOU is physical, fearless in its vulnerabilities, a sensing amid thought's most succulent folds. THOU is a choreography of irresolute bodies, the insistent shifting of their positions. Aisha Sasha John is a poet of centrifugal energy, of reverberant intimacy."--Michael Nardone