{"product_id":"blue-front-9781555974497","title":"Blue Front","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA stunning account of racism, mob violence, and cultural responsibility as rendered by the poet Martha Collins\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003ethe victim hanged, though not on a tree, this \u003cbr\u003ewas not the country, they used a steel arch\u003cbr\u003ewith electric lights, and later a lamppost, this\u003cbr\u003ewas a modern event, the trees were not involved.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--from \"Blue Front\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMartha Collins's father, as a five-year-old, sold fruit outside the Blue Front Restaurant in Cairo, Illinois, in 1909. What he witnessed there, with 10,000 participants, is shocking. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eBlue Front\u003c\/i\u003e, Collins describes the brutal lynching of a black man and, as an afterthought, a white man, both of them left to the mercilessness of the spectators. The poems patch together an arresting array of evidence--newspaper articles, census data, legal history, postcards, photographs, and Collins's speculations\u003cbr\u003eabout her father's own experience. The resulting work, part lyric and part narrative, is a bold investigation into hate, mob mentality, culpability, and what it means to be white in a country still haunted by its violently racist history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMartha Collins \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of four previous poetry collections, including \u003ci\u003eSome Things Words Can Do\u003c\/i\u003e, and co-translator of two volumes of poetry from the Vietnamese. She teaches at Oberlin College and lives in Oberlin, Ohio, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Graywolf Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51175083606290,"sku":"9781555974497","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_dc39650a-0373-4920-9031-f2400d44d3a7.jpg?v=1744284155","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/blue-front-9781555974497","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}