Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

The Devil's Garden

0/5 ( ratings)

Using musical allusion and metaphor, juxtaposing history and autobiography, Matejka navigates a triracial identity. In these poems, having too many heritages means having no heritage at all. As a result, cultural identifiers-be they afros, war paint, or William Shatner-take the place of identity. Vibrant narrative lyrics use image as riff, syllable as note, to improvise on a personal history severed from tradition.
Betwixt and Between
Miscegenation's capitol
is the mule. Not quite horse,
almost donkey. No useful
erection to speak of.
In any unnatural concoction,
somebody's got to take
the blame. Freud would say
credit the mother if props
are necessary.
Mulattos
are human mules-half
black, most times more
than half white-misogynous
on a good day. All the while,
impotent between tribes.
Blame: gift of the exotic,
like Hendrix opening
for the Monkees, or Othello
key holed by Iago. Blessed
be he with the hybrid vigor
of melanin, arrested between
the sun and the sun.
"Reading Adrian Matejka's amazing debut, I was left with the feeling that American Poetry was at last beginning to catch up with early twenty-first century American life. He has written the first serious songs from a world that's about to make itself felt and known."-Cornelius Eady

Format: Kindle Edition

Release: October 01, 2003

The Devil's Garden

0/5 ( ratings)

Using musical allusion and metaphor, juxtaposing history and autobiography, Matejka navigates a triracial identity. In these poems, having too many heritages means having no heritage at all. As a result, cultural identifiers-be they afros, war paint, or William Shatner-take the place of identity. Vibrant narrative lyrics use image as riff, syllable as note, to improvise on a personal history severed from tradition.
Betwixt and Between
Miscegenation's capitol
is the mule. Not quite horse,
almost donkey. No useful
erection to speak of.
In any unnatural concoction,
somebody's got to take
the blame. Freud would say
credit the mother if props
are necessary.
Mulattos
are human mules-half
black, most times more
than half white-misogynous
on a good day. All the while,
impotent between tribes.
Blame: gift of the exotic,
like Hendrix opening
for the Monkees, or Othello
key holed by Iago. Blessed
be he with the hybrid vigor
of melanin, arrested between
the sun and the sun.
"Reading Adrian Matejka's amazing debut, I was left with the feeling that American Poetry was at last beginning to catch up with early twenty-first century American life. He has written the first serious songs from a world that's about to make itself felt and known."-Cornelius Eady

Format: Kindle Edition

Release: October 01, 2003

More books from Adrian Matejka

Map to the Stars

Mixology

3.9/5 ( ratings)

Somebody Else Sold the World

Bodies Built for Game: The Prairie Schooner Anthology of Contemporary Sports Writing

4.3/5 ( ratings)

Read America(s): An Anthology

4.7/5 ( ratings)

Boulevard Nos. 92 & 93

3.6/5 ( ratings)

The Contenders: Excerpts from the 2013 National Book Award Poetry Finalists

Somebody Else Sold the World (Penguin Poets)

Boulevard Nos. 95 & 96

The Big Smoke

The Devil's Garden

Seriously Funny: Poems about Love, Death, Religion, Art, Politics, Sex, and Everything Else

Poetry Foundation Magazine, Volume 222, Issue #4, July/August 2023

Poetry Foundation Magazine, Volume 222, Issue #5, September 2023

Poetry Foundation Magazine, Volume 223, Issue #1, October 2023

Last On His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century

Tracking/Teaching: On Documentary Poetics

Last On His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century

Last On His Feet: Jack Johnson and the Battle of the Century

Poetry Foundation Magazine, Volume 222, Issue #1, April 2023

Rate this book!

Write a review?