Susan Smith (Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler)
The central character of the title poem of this volume is the notorious real life figure of Susan Smith. Smith briefly became the center of the nation’s attention in the mid-1990’s when she horrifically drowned her two young sons by driving her car into a lake and then attempted to play on racist fears in her home state of South Carolina by inventing a story about being the victim of a carjacking by a black male.
King Kong (King Kong)
The famous movie monster makes a cameo appearance in the volume in a brief five lines of verse in which his enormous hand scoops up girls in a chorus line and snaps his fingers. (An act which does not occur in any of the movies.)
Hagar (For Hagar)
Not the horrible male Viking from the comic strips, but the female Egyptian from the Bible. Hagar started as a handmaid of Abraham’s barren wife, Sarah. She wound up bearing a child with Abraham whose descendant could later be known as the tribe of Ishmaelites. A large portion of the poem expository information detailing this scriptural narrative.
Dr. James Marion Sims (Crystals)
Sims is famous as the “father of the modern gynecology” as well as the inventor of several medical instruments used in the process. He is equally famous for making his scientific advancements through the use of unwilling black female slaves upon whom he experimented without benefit of anesthetic.
Marie (The Juniper Tree of Knowledge)
Marie is based on a character from one the lesser-known and substantially darker fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm. Marie is the only character addressed by name in the Grimm version (called Marlinchin) and in this version the poet has altered some of the circumstances of the character to conform with more familiar tales like Cinderella and Hansel & Gretel.
