Let Our Eyes Linger

Let Our Eyes LingerLet Our Eyes Linger delves deeply into the authors life as son, grandson, father, husband, artist, and schoolteacher while illuminating currents of racial identity and the plight of other black men. These include Jim, the runaway slave from Mark Twains Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, who speaks here in his own in poems that deepen one of the most complicated and controversial characters in American Literature. Reginald Dwayne Betts calls Let Our Eyes

Let Our Eyes Linger delves deeply into the authorÕs life as son, grandson, father, husband, artist, and schoolteacher while illuminating currents of racial identity and the plight of other black men. These include Jim, the runaway slave from Mark TwainÕs Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, who speaks here in his own in poems that deepen one of the most complicated and controversial characters in American Literature.Ê

Reginald Dwayne Betts calls Let Our Eyes Linger Òa testament to how the stories we tell ourselves to get through the day can become the poetry that speaks to more than our own existence.Ó Joshua Wiener praises poems Òthat dramatize the contingencies of family; of its direct influence on the kinds of language we speakÉthat draw honestly the flight of eros from the domestic scene, as well as the endurance of love & devotion.Ó Toi Derricote writes that ÒDavisÕ poems invite comparisons with Robert Hayden and Gwendolyn BrooksÕ poems of 20thÊcentury family life.Ó