Boneyarn

Poetry. David Mills' BONEYARN; about New York's African Burial Ground--America's oldest and largest slave cemetery--conducts a heart wrenching yet historically meticulous excavation of America's contradictory allegiance to freedom and slavery; equality and racial hatred. Whether speaking about or through the voices of nameless servants or chimney sweeps; Mills combines a novelist's love of character with a poet's pitch perfect ear for idiom and eye for unforgettable detail. The imagination at work in this remarkable book is humane; unflinching; erudite and utterly moving. In its wide range of styles and voices--its empathy and outrage--BONEYARN is a profoundly American work that enlightens and chastens; laments and affirms or finds in lamentation a complicated form of affirmation. A marvelous achievement.--Alan Shapiro