Four Way Books, 2020 Paper: 978-1-945588-49-5 | eISBN: 978-1-945588-65-5 Library of Congress Classification PS3602.L679F36 2020 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.6
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS
ABOUT THIS BOOK In his debut collection Fantasia for the Man in Blue, Tommye Blount orchestrates a chorus of distinct, unforgettable voices that speak to the experience of the black, queer body as a site of desire and violence. A black man’s late-night encounter with a police officer—the titular “man in blue”—becomes an extended meditation on a dangerous erotic fantasy. The late Luther Vandross, resurrected here in a suite of poems, addresses the contradiction between his public persona and a life spent largely in the closet: “It’s a calling, this hunger / to sing for a love I’m too ashamed to want for myself.” In “Aaron McKinney Cleans His Magnum,” the convicted killer imagines the barrel of the gun he used to bludgeon Matthew Shepard as an “infant’s small mouth” as well as the “sad calculator” that was “built to subtract from and divide a town.” In these and other poems, Blount viscerally captures the experience of the “other” and locates us squarely within these personae.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY A Cave Canem alumnus, Tommye Blount is the author of What Are We Not For (Bull City Press, 2016). A graduate of Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers, he has been the recipient of scholarships and fellowships from Kresge Arts in Detroit and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Born and raised in Detroit, Blount now lives in the nearby suburb of Novi, Michigan.
"Tommye Blount's lyrics seem to live outside space and time, blending references to history, art, and contemporary concerns into expanding galaxies on the page...."
— Diego Báez, ALA Booklist
"Opening with a line from Hilton Al’s essay 'GWTW,' (shorthand for 'Gone with the Wind') the searing debut from Tommye Blount is magnetic and controlled. Through charged words, masterful line breaks, and ekphrasis and persona pieces, these poems blur the line between intimacy and violence...."
"In this debut collection, Blount considers the Black, queer body as the epicenter of both desire and violence, with the title poem addressing a Black man’s midnight encounter with a police office ('the man in blue') and other poems considering largely closeted singer/songwriter Luther Vandross and one of Matthew Shepard’s killers."
"Sung through a range of captivating voices, Tommye Blount’s Fantasia for the Man in Blue unflinchingly explores Eros, from its balm for pain to its proximity to danger. These dynamic improvisations composed of different forms and styles make vivid the institutional violence always threatening and often perpetrated upon the bodies of Black people. Blount’s vision is circumspect, clarified by empathy, and his poems simultaneously evoke and illustrate astonishment and understanding, outrage and compassion." -- Judges Citation
— National Book Foundation
"The backbone of the book, a quartet of poems called 'Fantasia for the Man in Blue,' originated from two interactions I had with the Novi Police Department. When it happened I felt fractured. I set out writing the book to help me make sense of all those fractured parts, but it turned out to be an examination of the mutability, vastness, and dangers of beauty. When someone or something doesn’t fit a standard of beauty decided by the majority, it is deemed an intruder, and then suppressed, silenced, or killed—as we see so often now. This book is a testament of one such intruder to beauty."
https://www.pw.org/content/a_life_in_poetry_our_sixteenth_annual_look_at_debut_poets?article_page=5
Four Way Books, 2020 Paper: 978-1-945588-49-5 eISBN: 978-1-945588-65-5
In his debut collection Fantasia for the Man in Blue, Tommye Blount orchestrates a chorus of distinct, unforgettable voices that speak to the experience of the black, queer body as a site of desire and violence. A black man’s late-night encounter with a police officer—the titular “man in blue”—becomes an extended meditation on a dangerous erotic fantasy. The late Luther Vandross, resurrected here in a suite of poems, addresses the contradiction between his public persona and a life spent largely in the closet: “It’s a calling, this hunger / to sing for a love I’m too ashamed to want for myself.” In “Aaron McKinney Cleans His Magnum,” the convicted killer imagines the barrel of the gun he used to bludgeon Matthew Shepard as an “infant’s small mouth” as well as the “sad calculator” that was “built to subtract from and divide a town.” In these and other poems, Blount viscerally captures the experience of the “other” and locates us squarely within these personae.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY A Cave Canem alumnus, Tommye Blount is the author of What Are We Not For (Bull City Press, 2016). A graduate of Warren Wilson College’s MFA Program for Writers, he has been the recipient of scholarships and fellowships from Kresge Arts in Detroit and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Born and raised in Detroit, Blount now lives in the nearby suburb of Novi, Michigan.
"Tommye Blount's lyrics seem to live outside space and time, blending references to history, art, and contemporary concerns into expanding galaxies on the page...."
— Diego Báez, ALA Booklist
"Opening with a line from Hilton Al’s essay 'GWTW,' (shorthand for 'Gone with the Wind') the searing debut from Tommye Blount is magnetic and controlled. Through charged words, masterful line breaks, and ekphrasis and persona pieces, these poems blur the line between intimacy and violence...."
"In this debut collection, Blount considers the Black, queer body as the epicenter of both desire and violence, with the title poem addressing a Black man’s midnight encounter with a police office ('the man in blue') and other poems considering largely closeted singer/songwriter Luther Vandross and one of Matthew Shepard’s killers."
"Sung through a range of captivating voices, Tommye Blount’s Fantasia for the Man in Blue unflinchingly explores Eros, from its balm for pain to its proximity to danger. These dynamic improvisations composed of different forms and styles make vivid the institutional violence always threatening and often perpetrated upon the bodies of Black people. Blount’s vision is circumspect, clarified by empathy, and his poems simultaneously evoke and illustrate astonishment and understanding, outrage and compassion." -- Judges Citation
— National Book Foundation
"The backbone of the book, a quartet of poems called 'Fantasia for the Man in Blue,' originated from two interactions I had with the Novi Police Department. When it happened I felt fractured. I set out writing the book to help me make sense of all those fractured parts, but it turned out to be an examination of the mutability, vastness, and dangers of beauty. When someone or something doesn’t fit a standard of beauty decided by the majority, it is deemed an intruder, and then suppressed, silenced, or killed—as we see so often now. This book is a testament of one such intruder to beauty."
https://www.pw.org/content/a_life_in_poetry_our_sixteenth_annual_look_at_debut_poets?article_page=5