A Box Of Longing With 50 Drawers

A poetic deconstruction of America through one of its key documents - in the tradition of Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, and Allen Ginsberg - this collection by noted poet-performer Jen Benka consists of one poem (in sequence) for each of the 52 words that comprise the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. Her revision of America's secular prayer expresses a profound regard for the possibility of America, while showing the many ways America fails to deliver on its promise of dreams fulfilled. Benka excises the scars surrounding the hopes of people marginalized from the political process, and articulates the isolation of a nation that has lost faith in itself.