num_pages: 134
description: A daredevil poetic achievement nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. . . A god isn't worthA drop of water in the hell of his goodImagination, if we can't curse Sunsets &amp; threaten to forsake himIn his storehouse of belladonna,Tiger hornets, &amp; snakebites.			--from "Meditations in a Swine Yard"No turn in any life cycle is taboo as Yusef Komunyakaa examines the primal rituals shared by insects, animals, human beings, and deities in Talking Dirty to the Gods. From "Hearsay" to "Heresy," these 132 poems, each consisting of four quatrains, are framed by innuendo and lively satire. Komunyakaa looks to nature and configures his own paradigm, in which an event as commonplace as the jewel wasp laying an egg in a cockroach becomes every bit as grand as Zeus's infidelity. The formally rigorous collection is itself a design for a systematic cosmos, a world compressed but abundant in surprise and delight.
language: English
title: Talking Dirty to the Gods
titlecomplete: Talking Dirty to the Gods
genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, African American, Poetry
ratings_count: 360
awards: awardedAt: 946713600000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Poetry
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux