FOREST PRIMEVAL: POEMS urban But while the public has

But while the public has long revered this cultural icon

"--Henry Louis Gates

has published successful books and has been friendzoned by Hollywood

the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster

FOREST PRIMEVAL: POEMS urban But while the public has"Another Anti Pastoral," the opening poem of Forest Primeval, confesses that sometimes "words fail." With a "bleat in [her] throat," the poet identifies with the voiceless and wild things in the composed, imposed peace of the Romantic poets with whom she is in dialogue. Vievee Francis s poems engage many of the same concerns as her poetic predecessors faith in a secular age, the city and nature, aging, and beauty. Words certainly do not fail as