jock librarian

With the publication of her fifth volume of poetry, Martha Collins is at the top of her game. Blue Front tells the haunting story of a witnessed crime and proffers a potent view of race relations. In a voice bold and matter-of-fact, she writes:

There were trees on those streets that were named
for trees: Sycamore, Cedar, Poplar, Pine,
Elm, where the woman's body was found,
where the man's body was taken and burned--

There must have been trees, there were trees
on Seventh Street, in front of the house that stands
in the picture behind the carriage that holds
the boy's mother, the boy's cousin, the boy--

And of course there were trees on Washington
Avenue, wide boulevard lines with exotic
gingkoes, stately magnolias, there were trees
on that street that are still on that street,

trees that shaded the fenced-in yards of the large
Victorian houses, the mansion built by the man
who sold flour to Grant for the Union troops,
trees that were known to the crowd that saw

the victim hanged, though not on a tree, this
was not the country, they used a steel arch
with electric lights, and later a lamppost, this
was a modern event, the trees were not involved.