Murder (a violet)
By: Raymond McDaniel.
Series: National poetry series
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Minneapolis
Language: eng
Description: Mysterious and enticing, Murder (a violet) is a brilliant narrative constructed out of 'fragments' that 'describe by accretion.' The author asks us to 'Imagine an epic from which a minor character walks away. Epic-adjacent.' This serial poem also provides room from the reader to enter and participate in the game played by its textual agents -- the assassin, the abbess, the janissaries, the vines, the trees. Flashes of action, some of them quite violent and noir, alternate with evocative, lyrical passages reminisent of Japanese landscape scrolls, and speeches concerning questions of guilt and redemption -- all of this composed, with a light touch and an ear sensitive to the weighs and balances of words, into a musical structure that rewards re-reading. -- back cover.