Tyehimba Jess : Olio

“This 21st century hymnal of black evolutionary poetry, this almanac, this theatrical melange of miraculous meta-memory. Tyehimba Jess is inventive, prophetic, wondrous. He writes unflinchingly into the historical clefs of blackface, black sound, human sensibility. After the last poem is read we have no idea how long we’ve been on our knees.”—Nikky Finney

“Olio is one of the most inventive, intensive poetic undertakings of the past decade . . . The result is a work both historical and musical, scholarly and sculptural.”—Boston Globe