mary wants to be a superwoman

Being of African American, Native American, and white descent, erica lewis' poems recount her friends and family's--especially the women's--complex history with race, gender, and class in America, what it means to live with your own history, and how to move on. Each poem is framed by phrases from the lyrics of Stevie Wonder's Motown records, but the poems themselves are homages to her women kin, friends, and other contemporary women poets. And the dominant motif is brokenness. "By intertwining the public and the personal, Lewis's poems become a membrane through which pop culture permeates the most intimate experiences of selfhood." --Publisher's Weekly