Blind Girl Grunt by Constance Merritt

These poems are brilliant and dangerous. The opening poem, “Invisible Woman, Dancing,” is the best protest poem of the decade. The speaker attends a party full of casual, good-intentioned racists and ableists. The ending of the poem is explosive. Constance Merritt shows incredible range – erotic poems to a wayward lover; blues lyrics so rhythmic I can nearly hear the guitar; and devotional poems that offer “this, you know, is love, is all, the end.” Blind Girl Grunt is a major work by a major poet. ~ Jillian Weise