MARC Record from harvard_bibliographic_metadata

LEADER: 03650cam a22003018a 4500
001 009380416-4
005 20041216132254.0
008 040213s2004 nyu 000 1 eng
010 $a 2004002567
020 $a0393059073 (hardcover)
035 0 $aocm54446629
040 $aDLC$cDLC$dDLC
043 $an-us---
050 00 $aPS3610.O654$bM33 2004
082 00 $a811/.6$222
100 1 $aJordan, A. Van.
245 10 $aM-A-C-N-O-L-I-A :$bpoems /$cA. Van Jordan.
246 3 $aMacNolia
250 $a1st ed.
260 $aNew York :$bW.W. Norton & Co.,$cc2004.
300 $a134 p. ;$ccm.
505 00 $tFade In --$t"Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" --$tZ --$tin-cho-ate --$tJohn Montiere answer to question one --$tThe Moment Before He Asks MacNolia Out on a Date --$tMeeting John Montiere --$tRant --$tfrom --$tWedding Night --$tLooking for Work --$tRed Ball Express --$tIn Service --$tJohn Montiere answer to question two --$tJesse Owens, 1963 --$tInfidelity --$tWhen MacNolia Greases My Hair --$taf-ter-glow --$tJohn Montiere answer to question three --$twith --$t"One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" --$tElegy to My Son --$tI'm Trying --$tDust --$tScenes from My Scrapbook --$tThis Life --$tThe Night Richard Pryor Met Mudbone --$tDeath Letter Blues Ghazal --$tUnforgettable --$tA --$tEnglish --$tto --$tRope --$tTime Reviews The Ziegfeld Follies Featuring Josephine Baker, 1936 --$tMorena --$tAsa Philip Randolph --$tGreen Pastures --$tPractice --$tAkron Spelling Bee, April 22, 1936 --$tOn Stage --$tMacNolia Backstage with Fats Waller And Bill Robinson at the RKO Palace Theater --$tMy Dream of Charon --$tDetails Torn from MacNolia's Diary --$tNational Spelling Bee Championship Montage --$tN-e-m-e-s-i-s Blues --$tIn Allan Rohan Crite's School's Out --$tMy One White Friend --$tCovering the Spelling Bee --$tFin --$tMacNolia's Dream of Shirley Temple --$tFade Out.
520 $aMacNolia Cox won the Akron District Spelling Bee, and at the age of 13 she became the first African American to reach the final round of the national competition. The Southern judges, it is thought, kept her from winning by presenting a word not on the official list. The word that tripped MacNolia, ironically, was "nemesis." When she died 40 years later, the girl who "was almost/ The national spelling champ" had become a cleaning woman, a grandmother, and "the best damn maid in town." Cox's ambition and her later frustration find incisive shape in this remarkably varied meditation on ambition, racism, discouragement and ennui, where successive pages can bring to mind a handbook of poetic forms (a double sestina, Japanese-inspired syllabics, a blues ghazal and prose poems based on definitions of prepositions), Ann Carson's "TV Men" poems, Rita Dove's Thomas and Beulah and the documentary film Spellbound. Jordan (Rise) begins in Cox's later life, giving voice to her husband, John Montiere, at "The Moment Before He Asks MacNolia Out on a Date," then to MacNolia herself when in 1970 her son dies just after his return from Vietnam. As counterpoints, Jordan intersperses poems about African-Americans who won more lasting public acclaim, among them Richard Pryor, Josephine Baker and the great labor organizer and orator A. Philip Randolph. Jordan's most quotable poems, however, return to the voice of the 13-year-old speller, who "learned the word chiaroscuro/ By rolling it on my tongue// Like cotton candy the color/ Of day and night." (June) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. Library Journal.
650 0 $aAfrican American teenage girls$vPoetry.
650 0 $aSpelling bees$vPoetry.
655 7 $aPoetry.$2fast
988 $a20040608
906 $0DLC