I Was the Jukebox: Poems

In I Was the Jukebox, Sandra Beasley eschews the speaker-as-poet convention and unleashes a collection teeming with the inanimate, the anachronistic, and the animal kingdom. She boldly channels figures from wartime and mythological culture; in 'Osiris Speaks' the Egyptian god gains new life as a vagabond: 'I left my heart in San Francisco. / I left my viscera in the Netherlands.' But even the most surreal images always keep one foot in everyday America: 'I left my liver on the 42 Line,' Osiris goes on to admit, 'headed from Farragut Square to the White House.' The nucleus of this collection includes many poems composed during a draft-a-day process referred to on the Web as NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month), founded by DC-area poet Maureen Thorson and coordinated to coincide with National Poetry Month.