Public Figures (Wesleyan Poetry Series)
“Osman puts public memory back in the public memorials.”—Rachel Trousdale, Rain Taxi“As much as it objects to some wars far away, the essay keeps its heart in Osman’s Philly, whose streetscapes point both to the present and back to the U.S. Civil War. Osman’s terse juxtapositions, careful background, and her lightly used but deeply relevant quotations place her close to Claudia Rankine, or to Juliana Sphar.”—Publishers Weekly“What Osman’s politically-engaged text does is force us to confront the alternating ugliness and meaninglessness of our historical sense, not to mention the travesties of language that that benighted sense often compels us to endorse. …Public Figures is a compelling read from every and any angle.”—Seth Abramson, Huffington Post“The essayistic concept at the heart of the book is brilliant. … Like the best documentary work, Public Figures answers the hand-wringing question of ‘how can art be political’ rather simply: you make it about the world. As in the passage quoted above, the playfully intent moments of Osman’s guidebook (there are some fantastic pages in which Osman diagrams the intersecting gazes of several martial statues) enliven one’s historical imagination, while also revealing a ‘you’ that moves in our shared present.”—Yevgeniy Fiks, Kenyon Review