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Ghost, like a Place
This collection highlights the complexities of fatherhood and how to raise young kids while bearing witness to the charged movements of social injustice and inequities of race in America. Memory, culpability, and our very humanness course through this book and strip us down to find joy and inspiration amid the darkness.
“The ghosts that haunt Iain Haley Pollock’s poems have substance. Some have names: Tamir. Rex. Emmett. Black boys of Philadelphia. Their voices are ‘the chattering of crows in a distant sycamore.’ There is awe in these voices, and self-deprecation, and lament. Most—despite the fact that there is little comfort to offer here—there is a faith in the body, in humanity, to bear its burdens. Read Ghost, Like a Place, and ‘know, finally, the rapture and wildness of belief.” —Meg Kearney
“The ghosts that haunt Iain Haley Pollock’s poems have substance. Some have names: Tamir. Rex. Emmett. Black boys of Philadelphia. Their voices are ‘the chattering of crows in a distant sycamore.’ There is awe in these voices, and self-deprecation, and lament. Most—despite the fact that there is little comfort to offer here—there is a faith in the body, in humanity, to bear its burdens. Read Ghost, Like a Place, and ‘know, finally, the rapture and wildness of belief.” —Meg Kearney
100 pages, Paperback
First published September 4, 2018
45 people want to read
About the author
Iain Haley Pollock
4 books11 followersIain Haley Pollock's second collection of poems, Ghost, Like a Place, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in September 2018. His debut collection, Spit Back a Boy, won the 2010 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Pollock teaches English at Rye Country Day School in Rye, NY, and is a member of the poetry faculty at the Solstice MFA program of Pine Manor College. He also serves as a poetry co-editor at Solstice Literary Magazine. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, and Callaloo, among other publications.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 6, 2024
Life at a decibel of mixed raced child losing oneself in youth culture to attain the perfect black body …. We know the ramble of eternity strumming the hand while a baby born is also another gone … one path may lead towards a parapet or another to stardom… with much gentle grace we are saved but perhaps we also save
June 9, 2024
Gorgeous collection on family and history, race and Philadelphia. He bears his most intimate relationships in these poems–his pregnant wife, his children. Favorite poems were "Boxwood," "An Old Country," "California Penal Code 484," and "Brewerytown."
December 6, 2018
Luminous and haunting. I read this in one full stretch, but have dipped back in and out since, revisiting passages and full poems that I couldn't get out of my head.
April 30, 2019
I had to force myself to not consume this book in one sitting. I savored it over 3 days and really enjoyed the thoughtful way that this collection of poems was pieced together. I know the author and bought a copy of the book from him before knowing anything about it and am so glad I did! I liked the variety of subject matter and loved the balance of seriousness with a few laugh out loud moments. Well done!
February 25, 2020
Iain Haley Pollock writes about fatherhood, love, gentrification, and so much more in this wonderful collection of poems.
In fact, this collection contains so many wonderful things, that to try to summarize them in a review would discredit him, so really the only thing to say is to go read it.
In fact, this collection contains so many wonderful things, that to try to summarize them in a review would discredit him, so really the only thing to say is to go read it.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews