Mixed Race Studies

The Lost Country of Sight

Anhinga Press
2008
90 pages
Paper ISBN 978-1-934695-06-7

Neil Aitken

Winner: 2007 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry

It’s difficult to believe that Neil Aitken’s The Lost Country of Sight is a first book, since there is mastery throughout the collection. His ear is finely tuned, and his capacity for lyricism seems almost boundless. What stands out everywhere in the poems is his imagery, which is not only visually precise but is also possessed of a pure depth. The poems never veer off into the sensational; they are built from pensiveness and quietude and an affection for the world. “Traveling Through the Prairies, I Think of My Father’s Voice” strikes me as a perfectly made poem, but poems of similar grace and power are to be found throughout the book. This is a debut to celebrate. — C.G. Hanzlicek, Judge, 2007 Philip Levine Prize Prize for Poetry

Fueled by motion and emotion, Neil Aitken’s The Lost Country of Sight is literally and figuratively a moving collection. His winding roads and “ghost cars” move us over the landscapes of identity and personal history with stirring meditative grace. “There is a song at the beginning of every journey,” Aitken tells us in one poem even as he says in another, “these are journeys we never take.” This poet is both our wise, wide-eyed tour guide and our dazed, day-dreaming companion in this rich, mature debut. — Terrance Hayes

The voice in these poems is that of a sighted, awake heart discovering its home in language and its homelessness in the world. Steeped in longing, the imagination here is concrete, vivid, sensuous, and ultimately erotic, even as it perceives that meaning and beauty are evanescent. This book is a full helping from the world’s infinite fund of tears. — Li-Young Lee

MixedRaceStudies.org Book Give-Away a Huge Success

MixedRaceStudies.org
2012-06-19

Steven F. Riley

Photograph by Laura Kina

Thanks to the help of Fanshen Cox, Heidi Durrow, Jennifer Frappier, Sonia Kang and the rest of the Mixed Roots Film and Litterary Festival crew, my book give-away was a huge success!  I hope all of the winners will read and enjoy their books.

I purchased just over two-dozen books for the give-away and was lucky enough to also receive three more from Glenn Robinson of Mixed American Life. Also, University of California (Santa Barbara) Sociology Professor and (2012 Loving Prize recipient) G. Reginald Daniel graciously donated his latest monograph, Machado de Assis: Multiracial Identity and the Brazilian Novelist.

I also want to thank Phil Wilkes Fixico for traveling to the festival to give me a copy of William Loren Katz’s Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage and Rudy Guevarra for signing and giving me a copy of his new work, Becoming Mexipino: Multiethnic Identities and Communities in San Diego.

Lastly, I want to thank Gino Pellegrini for the engaging and supportive conversation on Saturday and Duncan Ryuken Williams for the same on Sunday afternoon.

The books given away were:

1. The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States, Edited by Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores, (Duke University Press, 2010)
2. Becoming Mexipino: Multiethnic Identities and Communities in San Diego, Rudy P. Guevarra, Jr., (Rutgers University Press, 2012) (Thanks to Rudy Guevarra for signing a copy of his book.)
3. Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage, William Loren Katz, (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2012)
4. Blended Nation: Portraits and Interviews of Mixed-Race America, Mike Tauber and Pamela Singh, (Channel Photographics, 2009) (A generous gift from Glenn Robinson.)
5. Carolina Genesis: Beyond the Color Line, Edited by Scott Withrow, (Backintyme Publishing 2010). (Thanks to Marvin T. Jones of The Chowan Discovery Group and author of the chapter “The Leading Edge of Edges: The Tri-racial People of the Winton Triangle” for signing.)
6. Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle of Mixed America, Tim Hashaw, (Mercer University Press, 2006)
7. Fade to Black and White: Interracial Images in Popular Culture, Erica Chito Childs, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009)
8. Faking It: Poetics & Hybridity: Critical Writing 1984-1999, Fred Wah, (NeWest Press, 2000)
9. Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century, Dorothy Roberts, (The New Press, 2011)
10. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, Heidi W. Durrow, (Algonquin Books, 2010)
11. How Did You Get to Be Mexican? A White/Brown Man’s Search for Identity, Kevin R. Johnson, (Temple University Press, 1999)
12. The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White, Daniel J. Sharfstein, (The Penguin Press, 2011)
13. Love on Trial: An American Scandal in Black and White, Earl Lewis and Heidi Ardizzone, (W. W. Norton & Company, 2002)
14. Machado de Assis: Multiracial Identity and the Brazilian Novelist, G. Reginald Daniel, (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012) (A generous gift from G. Reginald Daniel)
15. Mixed: Portraits of Multiracial Kids, Kip Fulbeck, (Chronicle Books, 2010) (A generous gift from Glenn Robinson. Also thanks to Kip Fulbeck for signing.)
16. Memories of My Ghost Brother, Heinz Insu Fenkl, (Bo-Leaf Books, 1997)
17. Mixed Race Hollywood, Mary C. Beltrán and Camilla Fojas, (New York University Press, 2008). (Thanks to Camilla Fojas for signing the book.)
18. More Than Black? Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order, G. Reginald Daniel, (Temple University Press, 2001)
19. Multiracial Americans and Social Class: The Influence of Social Class on Racial Identity, Edited by Kathleen Odell Korgen, (Routledge, 2010)
20. The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee: Observations on Not Fitting In, Paisley Rekdal, (Vintage Press, 2000)
21. Obama and the Biracial Factor: The Battle for a New American Majority, Edited by Andrew J. Jolivétte, (Policy Press, 2012).
22. Part Asian, 100% Hapa: Portraits by Kip Fulbeck, Kip Fulbek, (Chronicle Books, 2006) (A second copy of this books was a generous gift from Glenn Robinson.)
23. Redeeming Mulatto: A Theology of Race and Christian Hybridity, Brian Bantum, (Baylor University Press, 2010)
24. Reproducing Race: The Paradox of Generation Mix, Rainier Spencer, (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010)
25. The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millennium, Michele Elam, (Stanford University Press, 2011)
26. What Comes Naturally: Miscegenation Law and the Making of Race in America, Peggy Pascoe, (Oxford University Press, 2008)