DéLana R. A. Dameron

(University of South Carolina Press, $15.99)

In this new collection of poems, DéLana R. A. Dameron, who is the University of Mississippi's 2018 Summer Poet in Residence, maps a journey across emotional, spiritual, and geographic lines, from the familiarity of the honeysuckle South to a new world, or a new kingdom -- Harlem. Her poems traverse the streets of this Black mecca with a careful eye cast toward the intimacies of the exterior. Still, as the poems move throughout the built environment, they navigate matters of death, love, love loss, and family against the backdrop of a city that has yet to become home. Indeed what looms over this weary kingdom is a longing for the certainties of a lover's touch, the summer's sun, and the comforts of a promised land up North. And as the poet longs, so do readers. Ultimately, they grow aware of Utopia's fragility.

A native of Columbia, South Carolina, DéLana R. A. Dameron is a writer and an arts and culture administrator living in Brooklyn, New York. Dameron's debut collection,  How God Ends Us, was selected for the 2008 South Carolina Poetry Book Prize. Dameron holds an M.F.A. in poetry from New York University and a B.A. in history from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She has conducted readings, workshops, and lectures across the United States, Central America, and Europe.

Read this profile of her featured on the University's website.