Sermon on a Perfect Spring Day

the long version

Poetry. African American Studies. To be instructed by exhortation in scripture from a pulpit is a return to fundamentals; Bryant loves to riff in short exhortations, treatises, assays on the controversial, on the impolitic... Bryant is at heart a teacher; he believes in daylight, so you can see the night-Michael Harper. In Philip Bryant's latest collection of poems, crystal-clear recollections crack with tangible immediacy: Frost/ is on the grass, but the snow is completely gone. The sky/ is clear and deep blue; I don't know spring is coming/ because I am too young to know what season it is (Eleven Short Scenes from My Life).