Dynamic poems that celebrate the Black vernacular and engage with the world through the lens of Hip Hop as well as America's vast reserve of racial and gendered epithets--from an award-winning author and poet. fin-na /ˈfinə/ contraction: (1) going to; intending to. rooted in African American Vernacular English. (2) eye dialect spelling of "fixing to." (3) Black possibility; Black futurity; Blackness as tomorrow.
A lyrical and sharp celebration, these poems consider the brevity and disposability of Black lives and other oppressed people in our current era of emboldened white supremacy. In three key parts, Finna explores the mythos and erasure of names in the American narrative; asks how gendered language can provoke violence; and finally, through the celebration and examination of the Black vernacular, expands the notions of possibility, giving us a new language of hope.
Nate Marshall is from the South Side of Chicago. He is the editor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. His first book, Wild Hundreds, won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize and is forthcoming from the University of Pittsburgh Press. His rap album Grown is due out Summer 2015 with his group Daily Lyrical Product. He is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wabash College. He received his MFA in Poetry at The University of Michigan where he also served as a Zell Postgraduate…
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