Subwoofer

Rothman probes the realities of his own whiteness through audiocentric language in his debut collection. He opens with an epigraph from Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man: “Who knows, but that, on the lower frequencies I speak.” But where Ellison explored the invisibility of blackness, Rothman suggests that whiteness makes itself invisible by centering itself as a default: “I grew in my white, such a tight clock-wind.” Rothman employs a vast musical glossary and pays deep attention to sonic textures as he nurtures a rhythmic flow. Each poem bleeds into the next with captivating language: “Their cocoon of subwoofers, a spiral of seeds/ Suspended in ruby belief.” Rothman also makes reference to black singers and writers such as Nina Simone and James Baldwin, which provides balance to the more abstract musicality that sometimes diminishes the book’s energy. Although Rothman makes sincere gestures toward the black creatives who have influenced him—and simultaneously makes moves to critique white supremacy and examine how culture is inherited (“Inheritance is a rifle/ We accept with little/ Consideration”)—sometimes those actions are lost in the noise of his sonic stylings. Rothman evinces a willingness to listen and conscientiously seeks the frequencies where whiteness reverberates. (Oct.)