Poems That Do Not Go Together

Jimmie Durham (born 1940) is a Cherokee poet, sculptor, essayist and a visual artist who has been making and exhibiting work since 1963. The cultural and political uses of material, objects and space have been central to his practice, and his career has deftly bridged the space between art and activism. His collected poems, Columbus Day, was published by West End Press in 1983. Beautifully produced, Poems That Do Not Go Together is the second part of his collected poems, containing 41 pieces written between 1966 and 2012. Full of puns, jokes, sad stories, political outrage and bitter reflections on the plight of Natives, it elucidates the animating energies behind Durham’s half-century-long career with clarity and volume.