Field Theories by Samiya Bashir (Nightboat Books, paperback)

Publication Date: March 1, 2017

Publisher Marketing: Winner of the 2018 Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Winner of the 2018 Stafford/Hall Award for Poetry. FIELD THEORIES wends its way through quantum mechanics, chicken wings, Newports, and love, melding blackbody theory (idealized perfect absorption vs. the whitebody's idealized reflection) with live Black bodies. Woven through experimental lyrics is a heroic crown of sonnets that wonders about love, intent, identity, hybridity, and how we embody these interstices. Albert Murray said, "The second law of thermodynamics ain't nothin' but the blues." So what is the blue of how we treat each other, ourselves, and the world, and of how the world treats us?

"I've worked on this book for six years at least, and what I did was walked around with glasses on that were glassed by quantum physics questions,' Bashir said. 'That was the glass through which I saw everything."—Samiya Bashir interviewed by Aaron Scott