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Bakary and the River by Clifford Bernier

Bakary and the River by Clifford Bernier

Original price was: $22.99.Current price is: $20.99.

 

Bakary and the River transports us in time and anchors us in place, evoking a proto-American landscape before “the land became property / and the mountain became ore / and the Mother of Rivers lost / her umbilical cord.” In a sequence of lyric and at times elegaic vignettes, Clifford Bernier paints “Bakary and I, I and I” as they consider the resources of the river: plants before they serve as a man’s meal, animals before they become someone’s game. The poet demonstrates his considerable skill at litany and dense enjambment, but also introduces the deft pauses and dropped endlines that invite the reader to rest and reflect on this shared journey. An alluvial blues; a thoughtful, deeply musical collection.

–Sandra Beasley, author of Made to Explode 

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In this marvelous sequence of poems, Clifford Bernier brings a contemporary slant to the myths and history of colonial Jamestown. Immersed in nature and its geography, the poet allows us to not only see but to smell and taste “the red oak and hickory,” “the splash of alewives / and sturgeon,” and most of all, the great Potomac River, source of legends and of life. There’s a bit of the great Gary Snyder’s influence in Bernier’s perceptions, but the compelling voice and the deft interweaving of past and present are all his own.

–Rose Solari, author of The Last Girl (poems) and A Secret Woman (a novel)

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Mysterious and hypnotic, Clifford Bernier‘s Bakary and the River leads the reader on a dreamlike voyage down America’s rivers, from the Chesapeake to the Mississippi and back. Leading the way is Bakary, the Gambian slave and riverman who is part Charon, part Mark Twain’s Jim. Told by multiple narrators (or is it the same narrator in different guises?), Bakary and the River is simultaneously a celebration of the American riverscape and an elegy for the time before “the land became property/and the mountain became ore/and the Mother of Rivers lost/her umbilical cord to the/surgeon and the steeple and the bell.”

–Miles David Moore, author of Man on Terrace with Wine

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Bakary and the River

by Clifford Bernier

Full-length, paper

$20.99 List: $22.99

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This title will be released on July 1, 2025

As I began writing about rivers I realized that I couldn’t write about their natural environments without writing about their people. Humans are, after all, part of nature. Native Americans have lived along the eastern Atlantic shores for millennia; the English colonists who arrived in 1607 were recent additions. All have shaped the history and the habitat. In this reimagining, I have relied loosely upon Captain John Smith’s The Generall Historie, available literature, and historical and informative markers at the locations visited. East for peace and wisdom, west for rain and thunder, north for the cleansing wind and south for the source and end of life. And how pelican lifts at First Landing.

Clifford Bernier‘s The Silent Art won the Gival Press Poetry Award. He is also the author of Dark Berries and Earth Suite, each selected by the Montserrat Review as a Best Chapbook. His new books, Ocean Suite, and Wetlands were published in September 2024 and February 2025 respectively. Bakary and the River will be published in spring and summer 2025. He appears in The Write Blend poetry circle collection among other print and online journals and anthologies. In addition, Mr. Bernier appears on harmonica in the Portuguese Accumulated Dust world music series and is featured on the EP Post-Columbian America. He has been featured in readings in Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Buffalo, Detroit, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and the Washington, DC area, including the Library of Congress, the Arts Club of Washington, George Washington University (where he is a member of the Washington Writer’s Collection) and the Bethesda Writer’s Center. He has been a reader for the Washington Prize and a judge for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Poetry Out Loud recitation contest. From 2003-2008 he hosted the Poesis reading series in Arlington, Virginia and performed with the Jazzpoetry band at venues in and around Washington, DC. He has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net Award. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

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