"An examination of a brutal America through the voices of its most vulnerable sons. In his debut collection, Fantasia for the Man in Blue, Tommye Blount orchestrates a chorus of distinct, unforgettable voices that speak to the experience of the black, queer body as a site of desire and violence. A black man's late-night encounter with a police officer - the titular "man in blue" - becomes an extended meditation on a dangerous, erotic fantasy. The late Luther Vandross, resurrected here in a suite of poems, addresses the contradiction between his public persona and a life spent largely in the closet: "It's a calling, this hunger / to sing for a love I'm too ashamed to want for myself." In "Aaron McKinney Cleans His Magnum," the convicted killer imagines the barrel of the gun he used to bludgeon Matthew Shepherd as an "infant's small mouth" as well as the "sad calculator" that was "built to subtract from and divide a town." In these and other poems, Blount viscerally captures the experience of the "other" and locates us squarely within these personae"--

Poetry. African & African American Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. Through biography, fairy tale, and history, Tommye Blount's debut chapbook WHAT ARE WE NOT FOR redraws the fatherland of manhood as a territory beyond whose borders tenderness and cruelty fight for space. The men and boys in these poems are transformed into instruments of pleasure and of destruction, worshipped artifacts and disfigured toys, victims and assailants. WHAT ARE WE NOT FOR moves its reader toward caustic longing, the hope that danger and risk promise. "Tommye Blount's WHAT ARE WE NOT FOR is an instruction manual on how to fall to our knees and crawl from the mouth of failed transformations. Here, Pinocchio's boyhood demands bloodspill for proof and the speaker's humanity is never fulfilled: 'After all, I am a broken animal.' Desire turns toward the darkest trail and does not look back through challenging forms and twisted prosody. This collection is rope and whip, daughter-sons and muzzles, and 'a prayer they mistake/ for a growl.' I am not myself, any longer, after these poems.' Phillip B. Williams"

“An appreciation of Japanese fantasy-film history through the eyes of a filmmaker whose name is obscure but populism remains influential.” —Chicago Tribune Ishiro Honda, arguably the most internationally successful Japanese director of his generation, made an unmatched succession of science fiction films that were commercial hits worldwide. From the atomic allegory of Godzilla and the beguiling charms of Mothra to the tragic mystery of Matango and the disaster and spectacle of Rodan, The Mysterians, King Kong vs. Godzilla, Honda’s films reflected postwar Japan’s anxieties and incorporated fantastical special effects, a formula that created an enduring pop culture phenomenon. Now, in the first full account of this overlooked director’s life and career, Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski shed new light on Honda’s work and the experiences that shaped it—including his days as a reluctant Japanese soldier, witnessing the aftermath of Hiroshima, and his lifelong friendship with Akira Kurosawa. The book features close analysis of Honda’s films (including, for the first time, his rarely seen dramas, comedies, and war films) and draws on previously untapped documents and interviews to explore how creative, economic, and industrial factors impacted his career. Fans of Godzilla and tokusatsu (special effects) film, and of Japanese film in general, will welcome this in-depth study of a highly influential director who occupies a uniquely important position in science fiction and fantasy cinema, as well as world cinema. “Provides the reader with a lasting sense of the man—his temperament, values, philosophies, dreams, and disappointments?behind some of cinema’s most beloved characters.” —Film Comment

Foreword by Roy E Disney Published to coincide with the release of Fantasia 2000, this glorious work showcases the stunning artwork from the six new sequences and three original sequesnces that will make up the new edition of this classic film. Concept paintings, character sketches, storyboards, rough animation, clean-up animation and spectacular final images - all in full-colour - are all included in this truly memorable collection which promises to be one of the finest books on animation ever published.

"Winner of The Brittingham Prize in Poetry"--Cover.

Sociologist Maria Kefalas travels to one of Chicago's last remaining working-class "white" neighborhoods to consider the significance of home, community and nation a generation after Martin Luther King's supporters marched through the streets, demanding an end to segregation, .

Recently bereaved, George Newhouse, is an art historian and newly appointed curator at the National Gallery who becomes increasingly obsessed with a lost minor Dutch masterpiece, The Blue Horse by Van Doelenstraat. The painting’s provenance is disputed and many doubt its existence at all. But Newhouse has uncovered a letter by Rembrandt where the master states, ‘That damned painting vexes my mind’s eye’. As Newhouse struggles with his grief, his grip of reality slowly loosening, he embarks on surreal journey of loss and self-discovery, fuelled by alcohol, drugs and self-destructive behaviour. As the lines between reality and imagination blur, will George lose himself in his obsession or return from the brink of destruction in time? Highly atmospheric and exploiting many of the tropes of art appreciation, this is a compelling literary noir and remarkable debut by one of Scotland’s leading art correspondents. ‘There were times in Philip Miller’s The Blue Horse when I had to look away from the twilight art world his lyrical prose so effectively eviscerates. There is a tremendous sense of darkness here. And yet his strength as a storyteller, his ability to create multiple narratives of greed and grief; of blurred desire, pulled me back. There is an intoxication about this writing, a narcotic lure to its descriptions of ambition and decline but it never strays far from the simple art of a good story well told.’Toni Davidson, author of Scar Culture and My Gun Was As Tall As Me ‘I was disturbed... interesting and convincing’ Alasdair Gray