McCrae, Shane: In the Language of My Captor

Wesleyan University Press, 2017 The fifth exquisite collection of autobiographical, historical, and verisimilar narratives from a premier poetic mind. In the Language of My Captor is a suite of poems of freedom, ownership, identity, and fear, interlocked. McCrae is creator and curator, maestro of the subtle coherence of several vantages and revelations, whether they’re those of the eponymous Black captive, of the mixed-race “adopted son” of the President of the Confederacy, or of a young, beleaguered McCrae himself. These voices belong adjacent—these vivid personae restricting one another’s movements in the interest of finer motion entire—disquieted psyches finding themselves in sync. ––Alexander Moysaenko   *** "Banjo Yes Asks a Journalist" I didn't marry none of them white womenBecause I was a     /What did you say     a free black manShit man if I had been a free black manI would have married a girl from back home That's what you think it isFreedom you don't you you think it'sMakin