Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Vessel: Poems
    Vessel: Poems
    Vessel: Poems
    Ebook96 pages51 minutes

    Vessel: Poems

    By Parneshia Jones

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    WINNER OF THE MIDWEST BOOK AWARD

    The imagination of a girl, the retelling of family stories, and the unfolding of a rich and often painful history: Parneshia Jones’s debut collection explores the intersections of these elements of experience with refreshing candor and metaphorical purpose.

    A child of the South speaking in the rhythms of Chicago, Jones knits “a human quilt” with herself at the center. She relates everything from the awkward trip to Marshall Fields with her mother to buy her first bra to the late whiskey-infused nights of her father’s world. In the South, “lard sizzles a sermon from the stove”; in Chicago, we feast on an “opera of peppers and pimento.” Jones intertwines the stories of her own family with those of historical black figures, including Marvin Gaye and Josephine Baker. Affectionate, dynamic, and uncommonly observant, these poems mine the richness of history to create a map of identity and influence.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMilkweed Editions
    Release dateApr 7, 2015
    ISBN9781571319142
    Vessel: Poems

    Related to Vessel

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Six Sonnets

      Jan 1, 2021

      Goldenrod, I could say, you know, everybody wants somethingfrom me, but, well, everybody wants something and nobody wantsnothing from me, goldenrod, towhead, beast. Goldenrod, you packthe meadows like gold-plated sardines. I have heart palpitationsbu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Devil Asks Why You Would Mouth The Word Pity

      Jul 1, 2022

      even in this abundance of dark? Even in this abundance of dark you have totake the stars on faith. Look: Under today’s dim sky there is a basket.In that basket there is a fish. Come night, you are the animal that will eat the best parts of it. And ye

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Lupine Anxieties of ‘Wolfish’

      Mar 3, 2023

      It is 1910 in Vienna and, lying prone on Sigmund Freud’s couch, Russian emigré and psychoanalytic patient Sergei Pankejeff—better known to literary posterity as, simply, “The Wolf Man”—describes a troubling nightmare. In the dream, Sergei is sleeping

      4 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2020

      She was a security guard and even though her uniform was black I could seeIt was covered in blood, the marble floor was covered in blood, it wasSlowly pooling out from the space where HER HAND used to beOh my god, I said, then I started to say, YOUR

      3 min read

    • Article

      Resistance and Reclamation

      Oct 13, 2021

      IN LATE 2016, adoptee poet and Kundiman fellow Leah Silvieus initiated a research project about the ways in which emerging adoptee poets contend with identity, loss, culture, and family in their work. She sent a query through the Kundiman network, lo

      17 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Kali Fajardo-Anstine

      Dec 4, 2019

      It was a beautiful year for books, and I was so honored to read these transformative words. Thank you to their authors. The post A Year in Reading: Kali Fajardo-Anstine appeared first on The Millions.

      2 min read

    • Article

      An Anti-Racist Poetry Reading List

      Jun 8, 2020

      These recent poetry collections offer poignant narratives and snapshots of racial injustice in America. The post An Anti-Racist Poetry Reading List appeared first on The Millions.

      1 min read

    • Article

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year

      Jan 3, 2019

      Poetry Rx: This Is the Year
      7 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: March 2019

      Mar 4, 2019

      For several reasons, there is only one thing I demand from my own lines, or from any poetry I love—I want to read it and to have a sense of having lived. The post Must-Read Poetry: March 2019 appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: November 2020

      Nov 5, 2020

      Stop obsessively refreshing the New York Times's elections page, and check out these new books of poetry by Alice Quinn, Margaret Atwood, Yi Lei, Karina Borowicz, Valzhyna Mort, and Paul Celan. The post Must-Read Poetry: November 2020 appeared first

      6 min read

    • Article

      Rot

      Sep 2, 2022

      Rot
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Chinese Word for Sorry

      Mar 1, 2022

      My mother holds her apology in one hand, bowl of cut fruit bursting from her palm as if she were the tree whose branches bore blood rush apples, bruise purple pears, unholy screams of persimmons torn from sun, instead of a daughter without accent onl

      1 min read

    • Article

      Lust, Loss, and Liberation in Jenny Erpenbeck’s ‘Kairos’

      Jun 1, 2023

      Maybe this novel is a Bildungsroman about freedom, with young Katharina its hero and the West her inevitable liberation? The post Lust, Loss, and Liberation in Jenny Erpenbeck’s ‘Kairos’ appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Writing Prompts and Exercises

      Feb 14, 2018

      Suggested Reading: A Primer for Poets & Readers of Poetry (W. W. Norton, February 2018) by Gregory Orr The author of a dozen books of poetry as well as three books about poetry, including Poetry as Survival (University of Georgia Press, 2002), Orr de

      2 min read

    • Article

      Monologue

      Mar 1, 2022

      I thought it was drool rolling down the sideOf your mouth but it was a trick of the light.It was actually a smile. About to leaveI thought I had heard someone say something.But it was you talking in your dream.Nestled in the sofa, your arm on your ch

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Future Is Coming, That’s a Fact: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore and Sarah Schulman in Conversation

      Jan 2, 2019

      What happened to the dream of the city as the place where you meet everyone you never imagined? Of queerness as ending borders rather than creating them. The post The Future Is Coming, That’s a Fact: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore and Sarah Schulman in

      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Vessel

    4/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Vessel - Parneshia Jones

      GIRL

      Cocoa butter knees dancing

      between two brotherly roads,

      daydreaming, pretend out loud

      Girl.

      Singing off-key, flowing T-shirt hair,

      microphone brush and missing front teeth.

      Jackson 5, Culture Club, Whitney Houston,

      Deniece Williams back up the deep-

      voiced, juke joint, Midwestern-raised

      Girl.

      Catfish, crab legs, and chitlins

      served on three-generation China.

      Great Lakes, mason jars, fried pies,

      and Mary Jane–wearing Girl.

      Stained glass Sundays, training wheels,

      wind, and a wide nose, thick plait, nappy back,

      dimple in each cheek Girl.

      Heiress of big legs, triple hip,

      raised eyebrow, silver dollars,

      dusty maps, and a diamond bracelet

      Papa gave the day you graduated

      eighth grade, and he said young lady

      but hugged you like his little

      Girl.

      The only daughter

      of an only daughter left;

      the keeper of ash and memory,

      curtsies and curiosity,

      Easter poems, skinned knees,

      polyester, silk, and calamity

      Girl

      stays close, superstitious,

      sassy and studied.

      Know better in your gathered years

      of woman, grown, change-filled

      coffee cans, kitten heels, cat calls,

      and collateral, Girl is forever.

      Let that Girl settle between new grays,

      laugh-out-loud lines, and the sand

      of her hourglass filling with fierce

      each newborn day.

      Girl stays forever.

      I

      What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.

      MURIEL RUKEYSER

      DEFINITION

      Parnassus [pα:næs s]

      n

      1.a mountain in central Greece, just north of Delphi, that rises to a height of 8,064 feet (2,457 m). Held to be sacred by the ancient Greeks, it was associated with Apollo and the Muses and was regarded as a symbol of poetry. Greek name Parnassós.

      2.(Literature / Poetry)

      a.the world of poetry

      b.a centre of poetic or other creative activity

      3.(Literature / Poetry) a collection of verse or belles lettres

      Parneshia [par: knee: she a]

      n

      1.1980—daughter of high school sweethearts (prom queen and football captain). Father,

      a Creole southern rolling stone, watches an old Greek movie, hears the word Parnassus. Father told it to Mother. Mother, first generation Northerner, couldn’t understand what Father was saying (Greek doesn’t roll easy off the Creole tongue). Mother shaped the word herself while baby moved about in her belly.

      2.(Woman / Poet)

      a.rooted in her Midwest, in her poetry

      b.growing up in Mama’s kitchen and stacks of dusty books

      3.(Woman / Poet) twenty years later, the Poet searches the definition of her name…who knew

      NAIAD

      A philosopher asked, If you could have one super power what would it be?

      When I was a little girl,

      I spoke indigo—

      birthed with gills passed

      down from sea women.

      I spoke indigo in my dreams.

      My laughs and grandmother’s

      sweet water lullabies conjured waves.

      I spoke indigo in my prayers,

      praying for family and fins,

      hoping my knobby brown knees

      would morph into sienna scales

      with fins of fuchsia.

      I

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1