{"product_id":"primitive-the-art-and-life-of-horace-h-pippin","title":"Primitive: The Art and Life of Horace H. Pippin","description":"\u003cp\u003eA lyrical and biographical reflection on the art and life of Horace H. Pippin—the best-known African American artist of his time—\u003cem\u003ePrimitive\u003c\/em\u003e offers a searching critique of the condescension to African American folk art as supposedly “primitive,” and it also critiques the underestimation of African American life and imagination in the broader American consciousness. Award-winning poet Janice N. Harrington connects readers to this fascinating, odds-defying artist, all while underscoring the human craving for artistic expression.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eThe Speller\u003cspan\u003e”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWriting with your rigid shoulder, with the weaker\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eHand, two years after the Great War, you try\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eto shape words that you could not spell, sounding\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThem out—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eraineing, playen, bob wir, infinze\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e—rolling\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ethem on your tongue like Demonsthenes’ stones,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eleaden shot spat out at shying targets. In a notebook\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eyou bend the language:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ehell place, nomansland\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e—and make in ink\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eUncertain places—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eLeeon, Oregon, Caintenerzair,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eMoperycort.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e But words are poor gazetteers,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eCompasses for the lost. We stumble\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eover consonants and vowels. We are strugglers\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ein our own language. What to call the ripped earth\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWhere boys wait in ditches beneath bursting shells?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eYou called it \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eterribell grond of sarro,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e spelled\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eso that we hear the voices ringing with terror,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eThe howl of the o, and the deeper o of sorrow.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003ePrimitive\u003c\/em\u003e\n\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“In her innovative and incisive third book of poems,\u003cem\u003e Primitive\u003c\/em\u003e, Janice N. Harrington shows us the great revelations possible in the intersections of history and poetry. These elegantly-crafted poems explore the aftermath of war, Jim Crow America, and American visual art through the life and art of the painter Horace H. Pippin. This collection is both a historical reflection and an ekphrastic object, masterfully rendered from found texts, paintings, notebooks, and the ephemera surrounding the painter and his work. It is through Pippin’s pictures and pigments, both paint and skin, that we see the complex beauty of the artist—a beauty that announces itself in bold colors in spite of the bigger machines of oppression that so often worked in opposition to his artistry.”—\u003cstrong\u003eAdrian Matejka\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“In \u003cem\u003ePrimitive\u003c\/em\u003e, the artist Horace H. Pippin is less a lens and more a prism through which Janice N. Harrington watches humanity with a careful eye. Harrington’s skill with image is undeniable, and her ability to intertwine ekphrasis, biography, history, and interior landscape results in a text that is much more than a book of poems without ever ceasing to be a moving and radiant example of one.”—\u003cstrong\u003eJamaal May\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch6 style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h6\u003e\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: left;\"\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2016\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":17215774981,"sku":"9781942683209","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/Primitive_FinalFront.jpg?v=1527683321","url":"https:\/\/shop.boaeditions.org\/products\/primitive-the-art-and-life-of-horace-h-pippin","provider":"Boa Editions","version":"1.0","type":"link"}