Drag

by Duriel E. Harris

Poetry. African American Studies. DRAG by Duriel E. Harris is a PoMoFunk symphony weaving the harmonics of language and culture into a transcendent whole. Forrest Hamer said: "We've been waiting for this book. DRAG is an exciting and significant debut collection from a gifted artist. Duriel E. Harris composes various and rich traditions of music, voice, and text, and Drag demonstrates ever new possibilities for this synthesis in poetry." Duriel E. Harris holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her writing has been published in ACM (Another Chicago Magazine), Fence, and the African-American Review. She has received grants from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council. WBEZ Chicago Public Radio heralded her as one of three Chicago poets for the 21st-century.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Duriel E. Harris is a poet, performer, and sound artist. She is author of three print volumes of poetry, including her most recent, No Dictionary of a Living Tongue (Nightboat, 2017), Drag (2003) and Amnesiac: Poems (2010). Multi-genre works include her one-person theatrical performance Thingification, as well as Speleology (2011), a video collaboration with artist Scott Rankin. Recent and upcoming appearances include performances at the Lake Forest College Allan L. Carr Theatre, the Chicago Jazz Festival (with Douglas Ewart & Inventions), the Greenhouse Theater (Chicago), the Naropa Capitalocene, The Votive Poetics Workshop (New Zealand), and Festival Internacional de Poesía de La Habana (Cuba).

Cofounder of the avant garde poetry/performance trio The Black Took Collective, Harris has been a MacDowell and Millay Colony fellow and has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, the Cave Canem Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Her work has appeared in numerous venues, including BAX, Mandorla, The &Now Awards, Of Poetry & Protest, Ploughshares, Troubling the Line, and The Best of Fence; and her compositions have been translated into Polish, German, and Spanish. Harris earned degrees in Literature from Yale University and NYU, and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago Program for Writers.

The 2018 Offen Poet, Harris is an associate professor of English in the graduate creative writing program at Illinois State University and the Editor of Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora.

Reviews

[Laurel Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful collection that kept me on the edge of my seat, I never knew what I might find on each page, and that is a gift to readers. The performance of each movement, each piece was unexpected & provocative in a way that I have not experienced before. Again, I am lucky that I can hear Harris read this, and I have seen her perform her work, which added a new dimension to this, her first collection. An astounding, funky vocalization that challenges the public versus the private.