A Rebellion, a Subversion, an Onslaught
Mutiny, the second poetry collection from Literature faculty member Phillip B. Williams, will be published by Penguin Random House on September 7, 2021.
Mutiny: a rebellion, a subversion, an onslaught. In poems that rebuke classical mythos and western canonical figures, and embrace Afro-Diasporanfolk and spiritual imagery, Phillip B. Williams conjures the hell of being erased, exploited, and ill-imagined and then, through a force and generosity of vision, propels himself into life, selfhood, and a path forward.
Intimate, bold, and sonically mesmerizing, Mutiny addresses loneliness, desire, doubt, memory, and the borderline between beauty and tragedy. With a ferocity that belies the tenderness and vulnerability at the heart of this remarkable collection, Williams honors the transformative power of anger, and the clarity that comes from allowing that anger to burn clean.
Williams developed Mutiny during his time as the 2020-21 Helen Putnam Fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
