Yard Show

Black history, cultural expression, and the natural world fuse in Janice N. Harrington’s Yard Show to investigate how Black Americans have shaped a sense of belonging and place within the Midwestern United States. As seen through the documentation of objects found within yard shows, this collection of descriptive, lyrical, and experimental poems speaks to the Black American Imagination in all its multiplicity.

Harrington’s speaker is a chronicler of yesterdays, using the events of the past to center and advocate for a future that celebrates pleasure and self-fulfillment within Black communities.

With a heart divided between the Midwest and the South, Janice N. Harrington weaves memory and place into questions about how we build a sense of belonging. Harrington a Guggenheim fellow, winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and a Cave Canem Fellow, Harrington has published three previous books of poetry: Even the Hollow My Body Made Is Gone, The Hands of Strangers, and Primitive: The Art and Life of Horace H. Pippin. Also an award-winning children’s writer, Harrington teaches creative writing at the University of Illinois.