Red Emma’s

“An unflinching look at the underpinnings of racism in the U.S., via key figures who used science to defend sterilization, exploitation, discrimination, segregation, and dehumanization of nonwhites, whites not deemed white enough, and anyone ‘less’ than those with ‘superior’ genes. With the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair as a framework, Collins attempts to understand her family’s experience of and participation in those times. Her poems are lists, definitions, newspaper pages, historical time lines, and biographical facts. These diverse poetic forms highlight the beauty of diversity itself. But Collins never lets up on the driving themes of unethical treatment and collective culpability. In fact, ‘Postscript Three’ punctuates this powerful collection with the vitriol still spewed and sensationalized, keeping racism depressingly alive in a supposedly advanced century.”--Booklist“A strikingly original collection that combines brilliant storytelling and compelling commentary on ethics and race. The interwoven poems begin with the speaker’s grandparents entering the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, where technological advances and artistic marvels were proudly displayed, as were examples of ‘inferior’ human beings, such as Ota Benga, a Congolese Pygmy who was later housed in the primate exhibit of the new Bronx Zoo. The poems follow his short, sad life and the rise of Madison Grant, a hunter friend of Theodore Roosevelt who created the zoo. Grant later became a key proponent of the eugenics movement. Collins, who has published seven previous books of poetry, doesn’t sensationalize the material. Exquisitely spare, these works recount some of the sinister moments of American history, quietly pushing readers to learn from those episodes and consider our collective responsibility for them. As she writes in ‘Admit One’: “hate to have to concede/ as evidence into the record/ we have to guilt mistake own/ as a right openly into.” --Washington Post