Petrsino's 'Hymn For The Black Terrific'

Petrsino’s Hymn for the Black Terrific is a striking juxtaposition of authority and symbolism, of chaos within form, of a metaphysical voice using and dismantling language towards a framing of the self. Language is distorted towards masterful vivid imagery, it is terrifying and holy all at once. Hymn for the Black Terrific is structured in three discrete, independent sections which can be read as long poems, “Oiseau Rebelle”, “Mulattress” and “The Eaters”. “Mulattress” is a sequence of poems in ten parts comprised of fifteen lines each in which the last word in each line is a repeated shared line that is italicized and refers to Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia “They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by the glands of the skin,