Dear Mothership - by Marcus Wicker (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

From the author of Maybe the Saddest Thing and Silencer comes a playful yet profound poetry collection that orbits the intersections of public loss, private grief, (dis)connection, capitalism, and identity.

In Dear Mothership, Marcus Wicker channels the lyrical dexterity of Outkast and the speculative vision of poet Robert Hayden to chart a course through personal and political upheaval.

The collection's centerpiece is the "Break Beat Crown"--Wicker's original take on the heroic crown of sonnets--presented as a travelogue from an extraterrestrial who has touched down in modern-day Atlanta. Across linked poems, the outsider records field notes on pandemic discord, isolation, tenderness, late-stage capitalism, empathy, and art. The longer the speaker inhabits a dysfunctional society, the more alien he feels. In addition to these science fictional experiments, Wicker delivers affecting, personal poems grounded in lived experience: lingering grief over two miscarriages, the sudden death of a friend, a sustained search for joy on the other side of those heartbreaks.

With its singular imagination, Dear Mothership kindles a new understanding of what makes us most human.

Review Quotes

"In this stunning, adventurous third collection, Marcus Wicker is yet again in full command of a dynamic, irresistible voice--pensive, contemporary, and poignant, almost as if to spite its playful side--wielding wordplay and rhythm with the dexterity of a lyricist, and observation with the tenderness and scrutiny of a master poet. I cherished these poems for their attitude, their wisdom, their futuristic Blackness, and their survivor's guilt. I felt at home with their frustrated awareness, their confessional tendency, their unshakeable imagination, their song. If these lines were any more musical, you could dance to them." - Morgan Parker, author of You Get What You Pay For