{"product_id":"abide-jake-adam-york-9780809333271","title":"Abide","description":"\u003cp\u003eWinner, 2015 Colorado Book Award \u003cbr\u003e Finalist, 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the years leading up to his recent passing, Alabama poet Jake Adam York set out on a journey to elegize the 126 martyrs of the civil rights movement, murdered in the years between 1954 and 1968. \u003ci\u003eAbide \u003c\/i\u003eis the stunning follow-up to York's earlier volumes, a memorial in verse for those fallen. From Birmingham to Okemah, Memphis to Houston, York's poems both mourn and inspire in their quest for justice, ownership, and understanding.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWithin are anthems to John Earl Reese, a sixteen-year-old shot by Klansmen through the window of a caf  in Mayflower, Texas, where he was dancing in 1955; to victims lynched on the Oklahoma prairies; to the four children who perished in the Birmingham church bombing of 1963; and to families who saw the white hoods of the Klan illuminated by burning crosses. Juxtaposed with these horrors are more loving images of the South: the aroma of greens simmering on the stove, \"tornado-strong\" houses built by loved ones long gone, and the power of rivers \"dark as roux.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThroughout these lush narratives, York resurrects the ghosts of Orpheus, Sun Ra, Howlin' Wolf, Thelonious Monk, Woody Guthrie, and more, summoning blues, jazz, hip-hop, and folk musicians for performances of their \"liberation music\" that give special meaning to the tales of the dead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the same moment that \u003ci\u003eAbide\u003c\/i\u003e memorializes the fallen, it also raises the ethical questions faced by York during this, his life's work: What does it mean to elegize? What does it mean to elegize martyrs? What does it mean to disturb the symmetries of the South's racial politics or its racial poetics?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA bittersweet elegy for the poet himself, \u003ci\u003eAbide\u003c\/i\u003e is as subtle and inviting as the whisper of a record sleeve, the gasp of the record needle, beckoning us to heed our history.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Jake Adam York\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0809333279\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780809333271\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Southern Illinois University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/06\/2014\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 96\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.38lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.99h x 6.10w x 0.29d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAward:\u003c\/b\u003e National Book Critics Circle Award - Finalist\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAward:\u003c\/b\u003e Colorado Book Award - Winner","brand":"Jake Adam York","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43926323134719,"sku":"9780809333271","price":15.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_991a7bc4-09e6-4316-95c0-692ca3f19173.jpg?v=1681082430","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/abide-jake-adam-york-9780809333271","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}