Black Pastoral: Poems Binding:Paperback with the tragic flaw of

with the tragic flaw of mortality

and mercy allows her to move from her aunt’s love of yellow roses to Gil Scott-Heron’s "Winter in America

" Frida Kahlo

Elena Romero

including El Anatsui

Black Pastoral: Poems Binding:Paperback with the tragic flaw ofFinalist 2023 National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize Black Pastoral explores the complex duality of Black peoples past and present relationship with nature. It surveys the ways in which our histories (both Black histories and natural ecological histories), our suffering and our thriving, are forever wound around one another. They are painful at times and act as a salve at others. Ariana Bensons poems meditate upon the violence and tenderness