The Boley Rodeo - by Marilyn Nelson (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Powerful, beautiful, and often deceptively simple, the poetry of Marilyn Nelson takes a polyphonic approach to rendering American lives of the past, present, and beyond. Voices speak from varied times and places, while the sound that results is that of a full-throated choir telling often-forgotten truths about human existence.

Collecting poems written since 2008, The Boley Rodeo features seven sections that capture the range of Nelson's artistry, from historical ruminations on grace and endurance to celebrations of artistic vocation and spirited flights of imagination: Sketches describing the annual Boley Rodeo, the nation's oldest all-Black rodeo, held in her mother's hometown. Excavations of the history of a Congregational church in Old Lyme, Connecticut, some of whose parishioners were slaveholders. Speculative fictions in which a young girl communes with the ghost of an enslaved person from the eighteenth century. Autobiographical pieces evoking a childhood spent moving between air force bases and searching for purpose and certainty while discovering a love of literature. Persona poems speaking in the voices of women artists from throughout history, followed by a sequence on the life and achievements of the Harlem Renaissance sculptor Augusta Savage. And, finally, tales of adventure and intrigue starring the monk Abba Jacob, a familiar figure from Nelson's earlier books, based loosely on a real-life friend and hermit, now recast as the hero of an international mystery thriller.

With The Boley Rodeo, Nelson provides further proof of the deep humanism, historical acumen, laugh-out-loud humor, and honest directness that have characterized her writing over the past five decades. It is a work of great emotion and consummate craft.

Review Quotes

"Marilyn Nelson's poetry is remarkable for its sheer range of voice and style, for its historical roots, and for its lyrical narratives that, replete with luminous details, unfold with an emotional force that, ultimately, becomes praise. She is a vital ambassador of poetry."--Arthur Sze, Academy of American Poets citation on her election to its Board of Chancellors

"Nelson has been committed throughout her career to meticulously chronicling the contemporary and historical experience--and contributions--of Black people in America. . . . Everyone who cares about how life is lived and felt in this country should read her vivid and deeply considered work."--Don Share, Poetry Foundation citation for the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize

"For decades Nelson has written a poetry that is insightful, moving, and clear, brimming with history but aimed at the future."--Kevin Young, Academy of American Poets citation for the Wallace Stevens Award

"Marilyn Nelson is a storytelling poet. . . . She brings a contemplative eye to ordinary goodness in the present and to complicated ancestries we're all reckoning with now. And she imparts a spacious perspective on what 'communal pondering' might mean."--Krista Tippett, On Being

"One of America's most powerful literary voices."--The Neustadt Prizes

"Nelson's introduction to poetry reads like falling in love."--Publishers Weekly

"[Nelson's] meticulous verse is the perfect vehicle to convey the devastating fragility of racial and familial identity in America."--Kirkus Reviews

"Poignant, powerful, and disquieting by turns."--Christianity & Literature

"Her engaging, lyrical style builds awareness around sensitive issues through human, and even humorous, storytelling that both children and adults can relate to."--Robert Con Davis-Undiano, World Literature Today

"Written simultaneously for children and adults, her poems aim to change lives, ideas, and language for the better and for the long run. . . . She wants her readers, at a young age, to fall in love, deeply in love, with the written word."--Hayan Charara, World Literature Today

"Enchanting."--Daniel Hoffman

"Everyone who cares about how life is lived and felt in this country should read her vivid and deeply considered work."--Don Share

"Marilyn Nelson taught me that history is never what they tell you if you approach it with wisdom."--Adrian Matejka

"[Nelson's poems have] the power of both memory and imagined form... There's so much powerfully contained."--Kevin Young

"We're living, bracing, even as a listener or reader of [Nelson's poems], 'How am I going to come out of this? How am I going to walk away with the experience that I'm now going to be carrying?'"--Tracy K. Smith

"Penetrating eloquence."--Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"[Nelson] limns her characters, who are also her foremothers and forefathers, with a novelist's sleight of hand and a poet's precision and music."--Marilyn Hacker

"[Nelson's poems have] a really firm belief in the role of being alive, which is to be the site in which life builds upon itself with questions."--Pádraig Ó Tuama

About the Author

Marilyn Nelson is the author of numerous books, including How I Discovered Poetry, Faster Than Light: New and Selected Poems, 1996-2011, and Carver: A Life in Poems. Her honors include three National Book Award Finalist medals, the Poets' Prize, the Frost Medal, the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and the Wallace Stevens Award. Nelson is professor emerita of English at the University of Connecticut, the former poet laureate of Connecticut, and founder and director of Soul Mountain Retreat.