National Network for Equitable Library Service

Anyone who has been through school in the past half-century has experienced poetry in the form of the multiple-choice reading comprehension test. Tyler Perry's latest collection engages in dialogic, deconstructive play with this familiar format, using his own invented form to explore themes of fear, family, poetry analysis, and the educational experience. These poems involve us in playful readings of text that bring the cult of assessment and reductive poetry analysis into question while deepening our engagement with language, imagery, meaning, and form.