The Belle Mar: Poems (Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series Award) - Softcover

Bickham, Katie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807160490 ISBN 13: 9780807160497

Publisher: Pleiades Press, 2015

Synopsis

Katie Bickham's poems, set on a Louisiana plantation from 1811 through 2005, speak through the imagined voices of slaves, masters, mistresses, servants, and children. Focused on events that take place in a single room within the plantation home, Belle Mar, she offers an unflinching portrayal of the atrocities that form an undeniable part of Louisiana's history. The fully rounded characters she evokes allow readers to contemplate the social forces that shaped a slave-holding society and perpetuated injustices long after abolition.

Tell me, Mother, how to remember you,
what name to call you and what to absolve.
Tell me how to live on this land. How
many times must I scour and sun the long line
of our lives until the water runs clean.
-from "Parlor 2012"

About this title

About the Author:

KATIE BICKHAM teaches English and poetry at Bossier Parish Community College in Bossier City, Louisiana. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review; The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry; and elsewhere. Winner of the The Missouri Review Editor's Prize, Bickham lives in Shreveport with her husband.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pleiades Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0807160490
• ISBN 13: 9780807160497
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 62