Un-American

Geter’s vivid debut invokes the pain of familial dislocation, illness, and death, exacerbated by the twin plagues of xenophobia and racism. The marriage of Geter’s parents (a Nigerian Muslim woman and a former Southern Baptist black man) saw her family move from Africa to various inhospitable locations in the U.S.: “my father leans down the barrel of a shotgun/ house/ and looks in both directions.” “Lesson one: there’s no god/ in Alabama,” Geter writes in “Alabama Parable.” Many of the narratives are moving, and the mother-daughter dynamic is central to the collection: “In America, no one would say her name/ correctly. I watched it rust/ beneath the salt of so many.” There is joy to be found in Muslim prayer and the Hausa language, but every blessing has an underside: Nigeria is “the land where my family will ask/ why I haven’t a husband.” Racism is addressed in poems recounting the murders of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Michael Brown, and personal compulsions offer their own dangers: “I’ve always been/ attracted to little/ violences.” It is this violence, captured in rich, musical language, that command such power. (Aug.)