Burroughs, CM: The Vital System

The Vital System by CM Burroughs (Tupelo Press, paperback) Publication Date: October 31, 2012 Publisher Marketing: Poetry. African American Studies. THE VITAL SYSTEM is the first published book by a poet already setting off sparks among readers across the globe. In these poems, the body is always at stake—vulnerable—and the poet dares to try and illuminate what she has called "the protective capability of violence." Burroughs's compression of phrasing, subverted syntax, and ability to release a story through cinematically sequenced images allow her to expose particular tensions that are gendered and racial as well as essentially human."With gorgeous horror, Burroughs's debut thrusts the body forward as an intelligence, a syntax, a theater. The narrator of these poems seems to come apart before my eyes; yet she never disintegrates—she teems. Here is vivid grief, livid vulnerability and bristling sensuality. Here is terrible resilience and dangerous vitality."—Douglas Kearney"There is no