Casual Conversation
New Poets of America, Book 47
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Narrated by:
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Renia White
About this listen
- Renia White is a first-time author. Her debut collection, Casual Conversation, was chosen by Aracelis Girmay as a Blessing the Boats Selection.
- Named in honor of Lucille Clifton’s National Book Award-winning collection, Blessing the Boats Selections spotlight new poetry collections by women poets of color. Previous Blessing the Boats Selections include Letters to a Young Brown Girl by Barbara Jane Reyes and Year of the Dog by Deborah Paredez.
- Aracelis Girmay will write the Foreword for the collection, and her name will appear on the cover.
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Critic reviews
“Whether waxing philosophical or poetic or recalling the inner monologues of the human spirit living moment to moment in lifetimes, telling tales of tattling, playing the dozens, or testifying, recalling lynch ropes or racial memory, Renia White’s Casual Conversation is not casual nor conversant in the denouement of passivity, but are rigorously passionate inner monologues—interrogations, perhaps—preoccupied with the human eye, ear, and heart. In her muted Miles-Bearden collaged renderings, White is as bold and brash and confident and causal as a musician, painter, filmmaker stopping us dead in our tracks (as Ntozake Shange reminds us poems should do like a kiss) at such self-assured soliloquies and spirited solos that are ‘just gorgeous.’ Her stilted syntax stutters lead you into the poem slant yet makes you ‘come through the front door.’ In these ‘blue rummage,’ dialectics you marvel at the mastery as White splits the personal wide open for the political (church burnings; confederate flag unlatching; mother-daughter remorse and reckoning) to merge and mingle with your ‘ear to the root’ of her blues: to what matters in her bright and shining ‘hope room’ of a debut.” —Tony Medina, author of I Am Alfonso Jones and Death, With Occasional Smiling
“Casual Conversation, true to its title, contains poems of such killing nonchalance both in what they say and in the many unsayables finding space in-between memorable line after memorable line. The way Renia White finds and inhabits space is a stellar pushback against erasure and absence. A timely collection by a timeless poet.” —Ishion Hutchinson, author of House of Lords and Commons: Poems
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- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 6 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Walter Mosley's talent knows no bounds. Inside a Silver Box continues to explore the cosmic questions entertainingly discussed in his Crosstown to Oblivion. From life's meaning to the nature of good and evil, Mosley takes listeners on a speculative journey beyond reality. In Inside a Silver Box, two people brought together by a horrific act are united in a common cause by the powers of the Silver Box.
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Another good Mosley book
- By James Ford on 03-04-15
By: Walter Mosley
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Abandon Me
- Memoirs
- By: Melissa Febos
- Narrated by: Melissa Febos
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In her critically acclaimed memoir, Whip Smart, Melissa Febos laid bare the intimate world of the professional dominatrix, turning an honest examination of her life into a lyrical study of power, desire, and fulfillment. In her dazzling Abandon Me, Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection - with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery.
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This journey is captivating to say the least!
- By Ilanna on 08-11-17
By: Melissa Febos
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Above Us Only Sky
- By: Michele Young-Stone
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Prudence Eleanor Vilkas was born with a pair of wings molded to her back. Considered a birth defect, her wings were surgically removed, leaving only the ghost of them behind. Growing up in Los Vientos, Florida, Prudence meets her long-estranged Lithuanian grandfather and discovers a miraculous lineage beating and pulsing with past Lithuanian bird-women.
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I'm So Glad I Listened to It!
- By Elizabeth on 08-22-16
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The Gift of Fire & On the Head of a Pin
- Two Short Novels from Crosstown to Oblivion
- By: Walter Mosley
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman, Beresford Bennett
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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In ancient mythology, the Titan Prometheus was punished by the gods for bringing man the gift of fire - an event that set humankind on its course of knowledge. As punishment, Prometheus was bound to a rock. But in The Gift of Fire, those chains cease to be, and the great champion of man walks from that immortal prison into present-day South Central Los Angeles. Disheveled and lost, he is thrown in jail, where he meets lifelong criminal Nosome Blane....
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Love Mosley's take on science fiction and fantasy!
- By mary on 09-26-12
By: Walter Mosley
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Learning to Die in Miami
- Confessions of a Refugee Boy
- By: Carlos Eire
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Carlos Eire's story of a boyhood uprooted by the Cuban Revolution quickly lures us in, as eleven-year-old Carlos and his older brother Tony touch down in the sun-dappled Miami of 1962 - a place of daunting abundance where his old Cuban self must die to make way for a new, American self waiting to be born. In this enchanting new work, narrated in Eire's inimitable and lyrical voice, young Carlos adjusts to life in his new country.
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Excellent memoir of a forgotten time in history
- By BRB on 03-23-15
By: Carlos Eire
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Fury
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Salman Rushdie
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The world renowned author of The Satanic Verses and The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie is a Whitbread Award winner and recipient of the Booker Prize. His first truly American novel, Fury is a metaphorically rich black comedy that reflects the pressure-cooker of modern life. Malik Solanka, irascible doll-maker and retired historian of ideas, suffers the pain of wanting without knowing exactly what it is he wants.
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surprisingly good
- By David on 11-21-07
By: Salman Rushdie
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Companion Piece
- A Novel
- By: Ali Smith
- Narrated by: Natalie Simpson
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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With an eye for rendering the timely in a timeless way and enchanting audiences with lyrical prose and grace, Ali Smith's ambitious Seasonal Quartet—a series of four stand-alone novels, separate but interconnected—artfully guided us through #MeToo, Brexit, the refugee crisis, a global pandemic, and more. Now, Smith's highly anticipated Companion Piece looks to the future and builds upon this "time-sensitive project". This new novel stands apart from the Quartet, which remains discrete unto itself.
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She said she said she said
- By Cate on 05-29-22
By: Ali Smith
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New American Best Friend
- By: Olivia Gatwood
- Narrated by: Olivia Gatwood
- Length: 54 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the most recognizable young poets in America, Olivia Gatwood dazzles with her tribute to contemporary American womanhood in her debut book, New American Best Friend. Gatwood's poems deftly deconstruct traditional stereotypes. The focus shifts from childhood to adulthood, gender to sexuality, violence to joy. And always and inexorably, the book moves toward celebration, culminating in a series of odes: odes to the body, to tough women, to embracing your own journey in all its failures and triumphs.
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Amazing poetry, but the music
- By Keaira on 07-29-19
By: Olivia Gatwood
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- By: Maya Angelou
- Narrated by: Maya Angelou
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age - and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. But years later, she learns about love for herself and the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors.
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Emotional & Powerful
- By Miss Toni on 06-30-13
By: Maya Angelou
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Before You Knew My Name
- A Novel
- By: Jacqueline Bublitz
- Narrated by: Penelope Rawlins
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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When she arrived in New York on her eighteenth birthday carrying nothing but $600 cash and a stolen camera, Alice Lee was looking for a fresh start. Now, just one month later, she is the city’s latest Jane Doe. She may be dead but that doesn’t mean her story is over. Meanwhile, Ruby Jones is also trying to reinvent herself. After travelling halfway around the world, she’s lonelier than ever in the Big Apple. Until she stumbles upon a woman’s body by the Hudson River, and suddenly finds herself unbreakably tied to the unknown dead woman.
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Excellent
- By cristina on 11-11-22
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The Lightness
- A Novel
- By: Emily Temple
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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One year ago, the person Olivia adores most in the world, her father, left home for a meditation retreat in the mountains and never returned. Yearning to make sense of his shocking departure and to escape her overbearing mother - a woman as grounded as her father is mercurial - Olivia runs away from home and retraces his path to a place known as the Levitation Center. Once there, she enrolls in their summer program for troubled teens, which Olivia refers to as “Buddhist Boot Camp for Bad Girls”.
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Perfect combination
- By Lauren yett on 06-22-20
By: Emily Temple