ghost exhibit begins with the declaration of vows: "I a woman called girl take you a man called ghost // called beast". In this amazing sequence, Melissa Atkinson Mercer has curated the lives of a family navigating the complexities of race, class, and religion while they try to stay faithful to the bonds that pulled them together. Part modern museum exhibition, part evidence in the trials of our contemporary society, these poetic exhibits root themselves in the daily details of a life while making those details mythic, epic even. "if my eggs hatch a miracle // by which I mean monster", Mercer writes, "as someone who wears the wrong gown // the wrong pain // yes this pain // yes I am talking to you". Marriage rites, funeral rites, the rites of living, all are examined in this haunting and haunted poetic convocation.
