The Ghettobirds
speculative poetry by Bryant O'Hara
The Ghettobirds
Price: $16.00 pbk. Speculative Poetry, Afrofuturism 6x9; 85 p. ISBN: 9781642510355 Nominated for the 2022 Elgin Award, Full-Length Book Category, from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) Includes the poem "Hoop Dance" nominated for the 2022 Rhysling Award, Long Form Category, from the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association (SFPA) Read It Now! Read an interview with Bryant O'Hara in the Blue Mountain Review.
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“The Ghettobirds is populated by a wild array of sf-steampunk-Weird characters—symbionts, biohackers, swarm robots, and a mechanical chimera—all of whom combine into a “badass boombox” of a poetic choir. Bryant O’Hara’s book is happily infected with the “Virus Riddim,” and it will infect you, too.”
--Lesley Wheeler, author of The State She’s In and Unbecoming “The Ghettobirds is solidly having fun with the tropes of science and SF, “that shake the dancehalls of spacetime.” It’s a fabulous narrative of interaction with the divine and demonic in the context of the cosmos…”— F. J. Bergmann, Editor, Star*Line Magazine "With a vision that is sometimes dark, stark and frightening–there is body horror and predictions of forced evolutions, mutations and minor mayhem–O'Hara leavens this with humor, word play, riffing on African American tropes and vernacular."— Akua Lezli Hope, author of Them Gone The Ghettobirds presents thirty works of speculative poetry that celebrate the ability of humanity to adapt to, surpass, and possibly transcend its environment and its origins. Sprinkled throughout this Afrofuturist collection are a series of recurring characters called the Ghettobirds, cybernetic beings created out of a technological singularity event that occurs in a slum. These beings exist to help humanity change itself so that, in time, it will have the capacity to leave its home world. O’Hara works with a love of both the natural and the artificial world, and uses rhythm and cadence to compress thought into images of just how strange our experiences can become as we learn to shape—and be shaped by—both worlds. 
About the Author
Bryant O'Hara was born in Long Beach, California, the son of a Marine Corps technician from Heflin, Alabama and a data entry clerk from Decatur, Georgia, both of whom instilled a love of music, art, technology, and the pursuit of knowledge. He received dual degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Humanities from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1993. His poetry has been published in Pandemic Atlanta 2020, Star*Line Magazine, and Eyedrum Periodically, as well as recognized in the Science Fiction Poetry Association’s Poetry Contest, long form division. Bryant is a member of the Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity and the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and is an ordained minister in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. He lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia, with his wife Alice, two out of seven children, and one out of five grandchildren. |
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