Poetry. African American Studies. Forrest Hamer's first book, CALL &amp; RESPONSE (Alice James, 1995; also available) won the Beatrice Hawley Award. Now, his newest book is the seventh selection in the new California Poetry Series. These poems speak from Hamer's memories of his Southern childhood, weaving that time into the daily dreams and insights of his life in northern California in a continuing series of vignettes. 'A man writes his dark body,' one poem tells us, and in fact this book inscribes exactly that: a full, breathing voice, muscular intelligence working in language that both startles and satisfies --Mark Doty.

Middle Ear (California Poetry Series, 7)

Literature & Fiction

Hamer, Forrest

Poetry

Roundhouse Press

"Forrest Hamer's poems rise out of the places where religion and dancing-- spirit and body-- join, and in reading Call and Response 'We are journeying to the source of all wonder,/ We journey by dance. Amen.' Amen! We call in celebration. Amen!" --Andrew Hudgins

Call & Response

Alice James Books

Rift, the third collection from poet and psychologist Forrest Hamer, engages hauntingly with separations and reconciliations that are both personal and socio-historical. Hamer draws on his American experience―including his youth in Goldsboro, North Carolina―and his African heritage―including the tragic conflicts between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda―to investigate memories, stories, and the way in which a poem is a “hopeful body.” Yusef Kumunyakaa has described Hamer’s poems as “calls into our modern wilderness that demand heartfelt responses,” and Al Young compares them to “a Robert Johnson blues or a Thelonious Monk ballad; [they] linger in the blood long after they enter the inner eye and ear.”

Rift: Poems

Four Way Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hamer, Forrest. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hamer, Forrest

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hamer, Forrest. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Middle Ear (California Poetry Series, 7)

Call & Response

Rift: Poems