Temporal Anomalies

The wry and expansive first collection from Broaddus explores Black identity and grapples with displacement and belonging in three sections evoking past, present, and future. In “Inheritance,” he writes: “I inherited a balcony—/ black sky, ocean wind—/ pushing deformation to the edges/ of the self I am sometimes, cannot be/ but when hailed, what hailed.” Elsewhere, this theme is explored figuratively, as in the prose sections of “Space Station”: “from portholes blackness looks in at me with many eyes.” Within these pages and reckonings, Broaddus makes room for playful, sonically rich poems, such as “The Magician”: “He licked a blue umbrella naughtily./ He did. I saw him./ The waiter asked him to refrain,/ but the water was cool,/ the spring rain.” The speaker’s voice in “Space Station” is often energetic and guiding: “Time is a long night I dance through. A tower I climb. A spiral staircase galaxy which ends somewhere I can’t predict. I judge by the food court. Food appears. I disappear it. I’m eating well.” Drawing variously from historical inquiry and science fiction, among other surprising motifs, Broaddus creates a voice and a geography all his own. (Sept.)