This is the author's first major collection of poetry after winning the Pulitzer Prize for Digest. Moving fluidly between considerations of the hip-hop group NWA, Tituba (the only Black woman to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials), MOVE (the movement and militant separatist group famous for its violent stand-offs with the Philadelphia Police Department ('flames rose like orchids ... blocks lay open like egg cartons'))--and more, Pardlo ponders the development of his own identity and sense of self as it was shaped against the glaring forces of whiteness"--