there was this bird

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>In Nikia Chaney's</span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> there was this bird</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> narrative erupts with a force both musical and visual. With experimental arrangements of text and deep sonic resonance Chaney affirms herself a virtuoso of transforming stories of identity marginalization and race into landscapes at once beautiful and heartbreaking. Part traditional lyric part dynamic geometric proof the book invites readers into a concrete collaborative experience. I want to tell you a story Chaney writes and that story is a sweeping exploration of what it means to be a person of color in today's America. every story is the same: you trying to erase what I am. Chaney counters each erasure by pushing imagination to the edge of the page-quite literally-where words swarm and reform not unlike watching a flock of starlings move through evening skies.</span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> there was this bird</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> turns stone pebble lake and person into a new landscape-one of possibility of visual art of song.</span></p>