Silencer

In bold, brash, open-hearted poems delivered with satisfying sass, Wicker, author of the National Poetry Series-winning Maybe the Saddest Thing, reflects on simply being while black. A news story about a tied-up dog resonates painfully ("You see human/ interest piece, …I see eclipsed casket"), jogging in the park inspires anxiety ("Sometimes, I can barely walk out/ into daylight wearing a cotton sweatshirt// without trembling"), and second guessing your every move becomes second nature ("Because my flat-billed, fitted cap/ cast a shady shadow over his shoulder in the checkout line. No, siree. See, I practice self target practice"). "Watch Us Elocute," a poem that exemplifies Wicker's way with titles, opens with a posh woman gushing over the poet's eloquence and leads to the massacre at the AME church in Charleston by a "throwback// supremacist Straight Outta Birmingham, 1963," concluding "None of us is safe." Wicker gets personal, too, ("think/ you're the first fool with a laptop/ to ever arrive at a blank screen/ & ask, is this enough?"), and one poem ends "O Lord, make me me," which is both caustically funny and emblematic of someone wanting to be himself in a society that makes it so very hard.