Post Poet Pop, Episode 19 features the work and conversation of poet, scholar, photographer and more—A.H. Jerriod Avant. Jerriod has just seen his first collection of poems—Muscadine—come to life, published by Four Way Books this month, September 2023.

Muscadine, for anyone who may not know, is a type of vined grape that grows in the US South and has long been used for jams, preserves, and even wine. But the meaning deepens when we look at the symbolism around muscadine—thick skinned fruits, how they flourish in darkness as well as in the light, and how they were once wild, untamed and nearly ubiquitous throughout the pre-cololnized, southeastern United States. But I also want to draw attention to the gothic aspect that both the visuals and narratives that come through Jerriod’s poetry present—how the gothic sort of vines its way through this book. There is grief and there is dance and there is family and there is heartache and there are breaks—both in the sense of gaps or fissures or things never being the same as they were as well as beats and rhythm and sonics that open up the space and allow for something unique. This gives the speaker of Jerriod’s poems a large range to operate out of, and perhaps as importantly, highlights a very particular musicality that shines throughout the collection. 

As Jerriod writes in the first poem in the book, “Pride,”—”Give me memories as / slow to leave as snails [...] Listen, how the voice of a dead man can live. Pack me a bag I can fit in my heart.”

Find out more about A.H. Jerriod Avant and get a copy of Muscadine right here.

All poems performed are the property of A.H. Jerriod Avant, and are published in Muscadine (Four Way Books, 2023).

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