A fourth collection from a prize-winning poet whose gift is
breathtaking (Naomi Shihab Nye)
Eugene Gloria's Sightseer in This Killing City captures the surreal
and disorienting feelings of the present. In the wake of recent
presidential elections in the United States and in the Philippines,
Gloria's latest collection sharpens his obsession with arrivals and
departures, gun violence, displacement, cultural legacy, and the bitter
divisions in America. Through the voice of Nacirema, the central persona
of the collection, we are introduced to a character who chooses mystery
and inhabits landscapes fraught with beauty and brutality. Gloria quotes
melodies from seventies soul and jazz, blending the urban lament of
Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane with the idiom of Stevie Wonder and
Fela Kuti. Sightseer in this Killing City is an argument for grace and
perseverance in an era of bombast and bullies.