Knopf Doubleday, Belletristik, Spectral Evidence (Englisch, Gregory Pardlo, 2024)

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY &bull 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&mdash Spectral Evidence, Gregory Pardlo&rsquo 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 (&ldquo flames rose like orchids . . . / blocks lay open like egg cartons&rdquo ) 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&mdash and about how these have been inscribed into our present, our history, and the Western canon: &ldquo If I could be / the forensic dreamer / . . . / . . . my art would be a mortician&rsquo s / paints.&rdquo.