Dangerous Goods: Poems

by Sean Hill

A magnificent poetry collection to follow-up the debut Kevin Young compared to the those of Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Elizabeth Bishop's.From the poet whose stunning debut was praised as "transcendent" by Kevin Young and "steadily confident" by Carl Phillips, Dangerous Goods  tracks its speaker throughout North America and abroad, illuminating the ways in which home and place may inhabit one another comfortably or uncomfortably — or both simultaneously. From the Bahamas, London, and Cairo, to Bemidji, Minnesota, and Milledgeville, Georgia, Sean Hill interweaves the contemporary with the historical, and explores with urgency the relationship between travel, migration, alienation, and home. Here, playful "postcard" poems addressed to Nostalgia and My Third Crush Today sit alongside powerful reflections on the immigration of African Americans to Liberia during and after the era of slavery. Such range and formal innovation make Hill's second collection both rare and exhilarating. Part shadowbox, part migration map, part travelogue-in-verse, Dangerous Goods is poignant, elegant, and deeply moving.

Genres: Poetry, African American

135 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 7, 2014

About the author

Sean Hill was over exposed to a potent combination of Twilight Zone and Monty Python as a child. This lead him down a dark path from which he never fully recovered and bound him with a passion to story telling. He has spent much of his life combining creativity with work. Starting at age 19, he designed and programmed award winning video games until he discovered improvisation where ideas could be expressed as fast as they could be thought.

He is the Founder of The Hideout Theatre in Austin, Texas where he helped people expand their creativity through the study of improv comedy, story telling, and the art of creating in the moment. In 2009, Sean combined his love of writing and technology by creating @VeryShortStory, a Twitter feed where he interacts with his readers and creates 140 character stories.

When not writing fiction, Sean provides creativity consulting services for clients who need to expand the creativity and collaboration skills of their staff.

Sean lives happily in Austin, Texas with his wife, four children, and a lot of dogs. He can often be found performing improv comedy around town with his friends.

Reviews

[Ben Siems · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you read a book better than Dangerous Goods this year, then you will have had a very good year of reading, indeed.

Sean Hill's collection of poetry, prose poetry, and I'm-not-exactly-sure-what-that-was-but-I-can't-imagine-there's-a-better-way-to-express-those-thoughts musings seems, for much of its brief length, to be a chaotic journey. Reflections on the meaning of home, on love and separation, on life as an "exotic" in a land that feels exotic, on slavery, on the colonization of Liberia, on race in America, on invasive species and more, tumble around each other in a seemingly random cascade, until slowly, in the dark recesses of the mind, the connectedness of it all begins to emerge, shadowy and whispered.

Then, suddenly, one lands firmly on the ground, in, of all places, the small Minnesota town of Bemidji. It is a place that would seem foreign even to most Midwesterners, positively surreal to the many people who mistakenly believe that life here above the 45th parallel is somehow the same as it is in most of America's vast midsection. It is anything but that. But somehow, beneath the sky whose blue-white color has never been adequately named, a solitary ATM becomes the meeting place of all paths, the setting against which Hill weaves together all of his truths into a dazzling tapestry, in one of the most soul-stirring displays of writing virtuosity I have ever encountered.

I am still catching my breath. I am in awe.

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raised in a black community in Georgia, living in Minnesota, traveling with his sensibility fully engaged, Sean Hill has created a voice that I'd be tempted to call idiosyncratic if it wasn't so calm and deeply founded. He reminds me a bit of Richard Hugo (especially in the "Postcard" poems interspersed through the volume), a little bit of James Wright (who he addresses directly in a beautiful call and response poem that concludes "I don't know/ if I have wasted my life.") But he's also very much in conversation with Yusef Komunyakaa and Rita Dove, meditating on the changing meanings of "blackness" in a world where the ancestors and elders are very much present beneath a surface defined by an increasing degree of professional success. He's at his best bringing to light the repressed racial history of the upper Midwest (both for blacks and Asian Americans in "Sam Kee I Imagine." And he's also at his best (yeah, I know, it's a comparative and you can't have two of them) in "nature" poems like "Somniloquent") I mark poems I'll come back to and there are a ton of them in Dangerous Goods: "Bahamas Voyage: Meditations on Blacks on Boats," "AFRICA from the best AUTHORITIES," "Spring 1986," "We Live to Learn to Love: A Story." The double-starred list includes the hilariously realistic "Postcard to My Third Crush Today," "Etymology in a Subway in Houston," which explores black-Latin relations with linguistic and cultural precision, "Penumbra," and "Spring in Bemidji." I missed his first book, Blood Ties & Black Liquor, but I'm checking it out soon.

[Ashly Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this collection but it lost steam for me as it went and I ended up skipping the last few poems. Some of the writing is clever, but I wanted to do more work in reading these.

[Cheri Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love poems that address a “you”—maybe because when they’re done well, poems like that reveal the speaker, the addressee, and the relationship between them, and I feel as if I’m getting someone’s secrets. Hill, with his many “postcard” poems (“Postcard to Eduardo,” “Postcard to Anna,” but also “Postcard to My Third Crush Today” and “Postcard to the Bottoms of My Shoes”) gives me what I’m looking for and also plays with this form in delightful ways.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to Sean Hill read his poems on Audible. It took a while to adjust to his cadence, but as I continued, I found myself relistening to many of the poems over and over. The poem near the end about an ATM and birds and still life paintings and so much more is sublime and elastic. Each time I listened, I noticed more layers.

I definitely want to read more of Sean Hill’s poetry. However, after listening, I think I just want to hang out with him so we can observe and discuss.

[Bee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of poems that surprised me. There are beautiful images in these pages as well as just astonishing connections. It felt personal while simultaneously tackling discussions of race, discrimination, and the erasure of black history. I was lucky enough to meet Sean Hill and have him personalize my copy. I'm glad to have such a special book on my shelf.

[Gerardo Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

gritty neonature poems.

[Cooch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four and a half stars

Poetry as history. A thought provoking read. Some great poetry here too. Some of these poems just sing off the page.

[Laura (booksnob) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before you even open Dangerous Goods by Sean Hill, you know you will be embarking on a journey through the world of poetry as the cover evokes the travels you will take. You can tell by the title that some of this journey may be dangerous. You will have to think, embrace the experience and send postcards home. You will travel to interesting places in your mind and heart when you read Dangerous Goods.

Come travel to Minnesota, Houston, Liberia, Ghana. Several of the poems within Dangerous Goods contain Postcards or snapshots of daily life in history and on slave ships enduring the Middle Passage. Hill takes you on a meditation through history, travel, love and nature. You must ruminate on these poems as they get into the depth of your bones and stir your heart.

Hill's poems are edgy, raw and beautiful, evoking time and place. These poems are diverse, striking a balance between Race, North and South, love and loss. His poems are a reflection on life and how time, place and history plays a role in your life.

I'm going to include a poem postcard here for you to admire, found on pg 81.

Postcard With Blood Stain

I've been carrying around this postcard for days,
dear heart; now, I finally get to write you.
Today I admired the local architecture-

spires, arches, stained-glass windows.
Speaking of which, don't mind the stain
-paper cut from this postcard. I know

it sounds unlikely. Beaches here are lovely.
It was actually a machete. Didn't need stitches,
Tried my hand at cutting open a coconut like

the natives. Well, in fact, while touring
a plantation I helped a local woman
give birth. Didn't want to make myself

out to be a hero. I have to confess.
I lot involved with the menses
of a woman I met at this great locals' bar.

Don't know why I said that.
Was something mundane, a razor nick.
Well. actually, in a flare-up of civil unrest

a stray bullet winged me.
I'm okay; didn't want you to worry.
Take this postcard and add it to your
papier-mache'. Or is it papier colle'?


*Disclosure: I received this book from Milkweed editions in exchange for an honest review.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is beautiful and touching, full of a lot of history and research into slavery and birds, postcard poems, and form play (reverse villanelles that unravel like unzipping a poem). The main themes of home and alienation and innocence/experience resonate, especially in "Spring 1986," which I wrote about on Structure and Style.

[Laurel Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is an urgency in these poems, a telling, lessons across time, across the continent. I felt like I traveled with Hill in this collection, and his language carried me and unravelled before me. There is a deep attention to space, to history, to teaching the reader, to, showing what seems to spill onto the page (often a spilling of the words on the page, spatially speaking). A wonderful, dangerous, and important collection.

[Melle · Rating 5 out of 5]

In addition to this dazzling volume of impressive poetry perfectly capturing one of the places I was honored to call home (Brrrmidji), it's simply beautiful and brilliant writing and crafting. Full disclosure: I got to see Sean Hill read his poetry at the 2015 Minnesota Book Award poetry panel held at Wescott Library, and that seems to always make me love a poet's work even more.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked a number of poems in this book, but it didn't slam me as did Blood Ties & Brown Liquor. Is it because these are poems of a transplant verses the songs of a southern man?

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

engaging, beautiful, ACCESSIBLE. Wonderful poetry that does so much without becoming opaque.