Communion
Subtitle: poems, 1976-1998
By: Primus St. John.
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Port Townsend, Wash
Language: eng
Number of pages: 233
Subjects: West Indian Americans -- Poetry.; Slave-trade -- Poetry.; Slavery -- Poetry.
Genres: Poetry.
Description: Communion combines new poems with three out-of-print books that display St. John's mastery of both the brief lyric and longer narrative, such as his acclaimed epic poem "Dreamer." In this highly inventive poetic exploration of slavery - revised and republished here - his subject is John Newton, the sea captain and slave trader who wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace." As St. John has noted elsewhere, "I am interested in how people survive the physical and ideological violence intended to subdue and destroy them.

In my work I try to be as comfortable with anger as I am with tenderness."