Spectral Evidence: Poems

by Gregory Pardlo

Overview

A powerful meditation on Blackness, beauty, faith, and the force of law, from the beloved award-winning author of Digest and Air Traffic

Elegant, profound, and intoxicating—Spectral Evidence, Gregory Pardlo’s first major collection of poetry after winning the Pulitzer Prize for Digest, moves fluidly among considerations of the pro-wrestler Owen Hart; Tituba, the only Black woman to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials; MOVE, the movement and militant separatist group famous for its violent stand-offs with the Philadelphia Police Department (“flames rose like orchids . . . / blocks lay open like egg cartons”); and more.

At times cerebral and at other times warm, inviting and deeply personal, Spectral Evidence compels us to consider how we think about devotion, beauty and art; about the criminalization and death of Black bodies; about justice—and about how these have been inscribed into our present, our history, and the Western canon: “If I could be / the forensic dreamer / . . . / . . . my art would be a mortician’s / paints.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781524731786
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/30/2024
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	360,041
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 5.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

GREGORY PARDLO's collection Digest won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Pardlo is also the author of Air Traffic, a memoir in essays, and Totem. His poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Playboy, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, The Nation, The New York Times, and elsewhere. His other honors include fellowships from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center, the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Pardlo is poetry editor at Virginia Quarterly Review, codirector for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University, and a visiting associate professor of practice in Literature & Creative writing at NYU Abu Dhabi.

Editorial Reviews

★ 11/20/2023

The contemplative latest from Pulitzer winner Pardlo (for Digest) explores fear as the basis for legal judgment. As Pardlo explains in the introduction, the fear-driven imaginings used by white men to condemn those accused in the Salem witch trials have been similarly employed against nonwhite people from America’s colonial era to the present. Beginning the collection with a long poem in sections titled “The Essay on Faith,” which is structured like a legal argument the speaker is having with himself, Pardlo lays bare the flimsy foundations of America’s justice system: “Dream, the via negativa that makes freedom ring. It/ is evidence of things not seen.” Other entries play on this concept of unseen evidence, such as “Sonnet,” which reproduces a table from a study of racial biases in the medical field. The title poem evokes the language of police perpetrators of violence against people of color to show how fear of the racialized “other” can be twisted to fit any legally excusable context: “Declares that on Harvest last, the Devil in the shape of a black man/ had the most aggressive face/ that his eyes were bugging out.” With characteristic intelligence, Pardlo confronts uncomfortable and enduring truths. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

When one of America’s foremost poets publishes a collection for the first time in nearly a decade it is a major event—particularly when that poet is uniquely suited to grappling with what’s been going on in America over the past nine years…. As ever Pardlo moves through poetic registers with ease, from high to low and back again, as he witnesses the world in all its terrible beauty. From fallen heroes of professional wrestling (seriously) to this country’s infinite hostility to its Black citizens, Pardlo’s is the poetic eye (and heart) we need right now.” —Jonny Diamond, Literary Hub

“Stunning. . . . [Pardlo] is adept at wordplay. . . . Each poem demands to be read on a granular level. . . . Form, lyricism, and imagery are expertly presented, and the result is a compelling, cohesive collection addressing timely topics. A beautiful addition to Pardlo's already impressive oeuvre.” 
—Booklist, *starred review*

“[Spectral Evidence] lays bare the flimsy foundations of America’s justice system. . . . With characteristic intelligence, Pardlo confronts uncomfortable and enduring truths.”
—Publishers Weekly, *starred review*

“Infused with a scholar’s deep knowledge of literature, art, and history. . . . [Spectral Evidence is] complex, linguistically rich, and unsparing in its analysis of both the current national psyche as well as the poet’s own.”
—Library Journal, *starred review*

From the Publisher

★ 11/01/2023

Drawing parallels between early American witch trials and contemporary racism, Pulitzer winner (for Digest) Pardlo's third collection explores the concept of self-knowledge by applying a kind of critical self-theory that considers how "spectral evidence"—dangerously false impressions conjured from fear of the Other—influences societal and individual perceptions of gender and race ("stand your ground against a black/ body and the courtroom says amen"). While his social criticism can be sharp, Pardlo recognizes that systemic injustice also requires personal complicity, unconsciously or not ("Just as I own my American way of/ leveling the playing field by separating others from their histories. Not all lives matter in this great republic.") Unlike much activist poetry, Pardlo's is infused with a scholar's deep knowledge of literature, art, and history ("The Marion Devotions") and a flair for unusual imagery ("With tango arms/ we hold the wedding knife"). VERDICT Complex, linguistically rich, and unsparing in its analysis of both the current national psyche as well as the poet's own, Pardlo's poetry dares to ask: "What if we didn't define ourselves according to our ability to know ourselves, but by our capacity to relate to others?"—Fred Muratori

Library Journal