BREAD AND CIRCUS

Airea D. Matthews, winner of the 2016 Yale Younger Poets Prize, is a fine poet with a command of poetic and speaking voices that serves her well in this audiobook. Her poems tell stories of some parts of her life, including how she has shifted among different American cultures. She uses accents and changes in timbre to portray the various characters she has encountered--or, sometimes, embodied. All the personas she takes on are Black, but many of the problems are those of anyone living in contemporary America. The book also directly challenges Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS, with direct quotations used as epigraphs and in the text. There is some additional voice work by her brothers, Emery and Wes. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2023]