Day 18: "Dangerous Goods" by Sean Hill

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Each day as we count down to the announcement of the Minnesota Book Awards, we highlight one of the thirty-two finalists. Today we feature 2015 Poetry finalist Sean Hill.

Travel, Distance, and History in Verse

 

Dangerous Goods by Sean Hill
Published by Milkweed Editions
Category Sponsor: Wellington Management

A collection of verse on travel, distance, and history, Dangerous Goods features poems of reminiscence and coming of age, observations on modern life and times past. From the Bahamas, London, and Cairo, to Bemidji, Minnesota, and Milledgeville, Georgia, Hill explores 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. Part shadowbox, part migration map, part travelogue-in-verse, Dangerous Goods is poignant, elegant, and deeply moving.

About the author:

Sean Hill was born and raised in Milledgeville, Georgia, and received an MFA from the University of Houston. He has received fellowships and grants from Cave Canem, the Bush Foundation, The MacDowell Colony, the University of Wisconsin, the Jerome Foundation, and Stanford University where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry. His first book, Blood Ties & Brown Liquor, was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2008. In 2009 Hill became an editor at Broadsided Press. He lives in Bemidji, MN.

 The reviews are in:

“Measuring the ‘distance between desires’ and the fear and possibilities of displacement, Sean Hill’s brilliant new book will make your heart skip ‘like those flat stones that kiss the skin / of the pond and fly off again.’ Where Hill’s first book was an evocation of his Georgia homeplace, Dangerous Goods travels widely and well, from nineteenth-century Liberia to present day Minnesota, from ‘Blacks on Boats’ to postcards written to nostalgia and regret. Channeling Richard Hugo and Jay Wright, Hill’s poignant, pointed poetry is a divining rod, knowing well that the dark is ‘an ocean for us all.’” —Kevin Young, author of Book of Hours

“Spanning centuries, countries, and subjects, Hill’s poems convey the dangerous goods that fascinate, inspire, and engage the reader. The author’s originality gives a promising glimpse of a fascinating career.” – MN Book Awards judge

In the media:

Interview with Sean Hill

Sean Hill Reads “Postcard to Wrong Address” on PRX

Sean Hill Reads “Postcard to Nostalgia” on PRX


Join us at the Awards Gala!

Get Tickets NowAward winners will be announced at the 27th Annual Minnesota Book Awards Gala on Saturday, April 18 at the historic St. Paul Union Depot. The opening reception begins at 7 p.m., followed by the awards ceremony at 8 p.m. Tickets are $50 and are available by visiting www.thefriends.org/gala.

Have you read Dangerous Goods? What are your thoughts? We welcome your comments!

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