What is most compelling about Linda Susan Jackson s debut collection of poems, "What Yellow Sounds Like, " is the extraordinary self-possession of its young female narrator as she seeks to answer?who am I and to whom do I belong? These poems are about the process of shaping the identity of one girl who comes from a line of technicolor women who have honey/suckle buried freely in the folds of their flesh, a girl who comes from men who bit their tongues, /ate dirt, dust and their pride. Worked anywhere, and could soar off the ground.
The terrain of Jackson s poems is particular, perilous,...