To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness

Narrated by its author, National Book Award winner Lewis (Voyage of the Sable Venus), this work of poetry explores photography and human migration, offering a transformative view of the interaction between language and images. Lewis paints a vivid picture of the photos—ranging from sepia tintypes to Polaroids discovered in her maternal grandmother’s possessions 25 years after her death—that anchor her work. Lewis’s family survived as part of the migrations of millions of Black Americans who fled the South, attempting to escape white supremacy and white terrorism, and she found that her grandmother’s collection of photographs of daily 20th-century Black life revealed a concealed interior history. The poetry that Lewis connects to these stunning images is compelling—exquisitely paced, tenderly expressed, and evocative. Lewis creates an intimate and intricate documentary about Black history, an achievement that will provoke listeners’ thoughts and feelings of loss, as well as moments and memories.