Maybe the Saddest Thing

Winner of the 2011 National Poetry Series Prize as selected by D.A. Powell, Marcus Wicker's Maybe the Saddest Thing is a sterling collection of contemporary American poems by an exciting new and emerging voice. Review“Action painting meets the pop of hip-hop. Here is a dashing figure of speech and preach, a lovepoet to the stars....Marcus Wicker[’s] lyric wizardry astounds the ear in conclamant melodies and astonishes the eye ‘like a shard of glass catches a beam’.” (D.A. Powell )“Marcus Wicker has, as Mos Def and Talib Kweli did, made an art that bridges cultures….The dialogues, love letters, and reflections throughout this wonderful debut show us what it is to be in vigilant conversation with the world and with the self.” (Terrance Hayes )“Wicker preaches an urgent gospel of pop-culture, desire, adolescence, race, and family, that says “Hell yes” to the world with deft turns of phrase, and a rhythmic inventiveness that hurtles down the page. This fearless debut will make your head spin, your heart strut.” (Erika Meitner ) About the AuthorMarcus Wicker was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The recipient of a 2011 Ruth Lilly Fellowship, he has also held fellowships from Cave Canem, the Fine Arts Work Center, and Indiana University where he received his MFA. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Beloit, jubilat, Ninth Letter, and Crab Orchard Review, among other journals. He is assistant professor of English at University of Southern Indiana.