Murmur

A poetry collection that explores the complexity of race and the body for a Black man in contemporary America.

The second book by NAACP Image Award finalist Cameron Barnett, Murmur considers the question of how we become who we are. The answers Barnett offers in these poems are neither safe nor easy, as he traces a Black man's lineage through time and space in contemporary America, navigating personal experiences, political hypocrisies, pop culture, social history, astronomy, and language. Barnett synthesizes unexpected connections and contradictions, exploring the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 and the death of Terence Crutcher in 2016 and searching both the stars of Andromeda and a plantation in South Carolina. A diagnosis from the poet's infancy haunts the poet as he wonders, "like too many Black men," if "a heart is not enough to keep me alive."


Author: Cameron Barnett
Publisher: Autumn House Press
Published: 02/27/2024
Pages: 98
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.31lbs
Size: 8.70h x 5.90w x 0.30d
ISBN13: 9781637680872
ISBN10: 1637680872
BISAC Categories:
- Poetry | American | African American & Black
- Poetry | Subjects & Themes | Family
- Poetry | Subjects & Themes | Political & Protest

About the Author
Cameron Barnett is a Pittsburgh-based poet and teacher. He is the author of The Drowning Boy's Guide to Water, winner of the Autumn House Press Rising Writer Contest, and a finalist for an NAACP Image Award.