{"id":55460,"date":"2017-12-26T02:16:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T02:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=55460"},"modified":"2017-12-26T03:12:17","modified_gmt":"2017-12-26T03:12:17","slug":"to-sweeten-bitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=55460","title":{"rendered":"To Sweeten Bitter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.outspokenldn.com\/shop\/tsb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>To Sweeten Bitter<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.outspokenldn.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Out-Spoken Press<\/a><br \/>\n2017-04-10<br \/>\n49 pages<br \/>\n8.5 x 0.4 x 5.5 inches<br \/>\nISBN-13: 978-0993103872<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.raymondantrobus.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Raymond Antrobus<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.outspokenldn.com\/shop\/tsb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static1.squarespace.com\/static\/54da216be4b0fd1bf8e0b1ee\/55fd48e8e4b0ee6346911c2d\/58cafee559cc68a21986ab5b\/1506541173246\/TSBthumb.jpg?format=1500w\" width=\"300\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Consider the name of Raymond Antrobus\u2019 extraordinary collection of poems for a moment: To Sweeten Bitter. It\u2019s a phrase of infinite possibility and tender worry, open and searching, wanting and volatile. And in this sense, it serves as a kind of secret refrain for us, a haunted current that charges after each line and image, each heart-fraught question (\u201cyou think you\u2019re going \/ to go free?\u201d) and tentative hope (\u201cthere is always enough time \/ in our lives to see \/ what we must see\u201d). Here, a father laughs \u201cyou cannot love sugar and hate your sweetness\u201d and a son reckons with all that might mean \u201cin the scratched light\u201d of history and the \u201cturning \/ and the losing of myself.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Derek_Walcott\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Derek Walcott<\/a> once reflected that \u201cI have never separated the writing of poetry from prayer;\u201d these poems\u2014 in all their urgent beauty\u2014affirm that faith, embody it. \u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/caesura\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">R.A. Villanueva<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Consider the name of Raymond Antrobus\u2019 extraordinary collection of poems for a moment: To Sweeten Bitter. It\u2019s a phrase of infinite possibility and tender worry, open and searching, wanting and volatile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[395,11,8,1617,10],"tags":[27883,20730],"class_list":["post-55460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiography","category-books","category-media-archive","category-poetry-books","category-uk","tag-out-spoken-press","tag-raymond-antrobus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55460"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55462,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55460\/revisions\/55462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}