The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America
by Michael Eric Dyson
Published February 2nd 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I finished this book yesterday. As an outsider/insider in many ways (I'm not black, and in the state in which I live, Latinos are the largest "minority," and I'm not Latino either), this was an incredible gift to read: Mr. Dyson wrote this unflinchingly, and yet generously, seeking to understand both his subject and his varied audience, seeking to wound nobody, but making his point without any apparent censorship of his analysis. He is critical but not unkind. And the last chapter, one about redemption, is breathtaking. I'm grateful.

Koayashi Issa

Recent poetry purchases. I added the cow because of this glorious Haiku in the little Dover anthology, by Matsunaga Teitoku:

That morning, how
Icicles drip! -- Slobbering
Year of the cow! 

(trans. Harold Gould Henderson)

Feed - Tommy Pico
The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology (Dover)
Book of Haiku - Jack Kerouac
Haiku - The Last Poems of an American Icon - Richard Wright