A formally inventive debut collection of poetry driven by narrative
and character.
In this poetry collection, JD Debris focuses on characters who live on
society's outskirts and demand greater visibility in the face of
marginalization. At the book's heart are extended narrative elegies for
two musicians. First, the poet follows Mexican singer and songwriter
Chalino Sánchez as he avenges his sister's sexual assault, and then he
turns to Gato Barbieri, an influential Argentine tenor saxophonist who
is haunted by a shadowy "man in dusk-colored glasses." As these
musicians question their purpose, we as readers are invited to reflect
on our lives, our legacies, and ourselves.
The Scorpion's Question Mark is personal and mythological,
representational and abstract. These formally inventive and metrically
attuned poems compose a range of contrasts--boxers Manny Pacquiao and
Marvelous Marvin Hagler appear alongside Tupac and Herman Melville, and
apparitions of the Virgin Mary manifest in both human and mirage-like
forms on public beachfronts. Looking to the scorpion's tail that forms
the shape of a question mark, Debris seeks to occupy uncertain space
within the poems, bending forms to find both expansiveness and tension.
The Scorpion's Question Mark was the winner of the 2022 Donald Justice
Poetry Prize.
