A Kind of Amnesty Given the Mind
Dicko King’s A Kind of Amnesty Given the Mind chronicles the transformation of the young Mikey Mulkerrin as he navigates the historically Irish Catholic neighborhood of South Boston, a story that culminates in Mikey’s remaking as Southie’s venerable Archangel.
A novelette in verse, King’s third collection exists in a middle ground between narrative structure and non-linear, lyrical energies. At once a playscript and a poetic epic, enacted in the associative realms that King has created and lived in, A Kind of Amnesty Given the Mind reveals the complex relationships that take shape in a single neighborhood—between family and friends, gods and mere humans—whose residents cannot escape the generational influences that forged them, for better or worse.
About the Author
Dicko King was born at the old Carney Hospital in South Boston, and raised in St. Margaret’s parish in Dorchester during the last of the grand and mythical eras presided over by tribes of feral children—when adventures could be had beyond the watchful eyes of a mother or father, and despite strictures and wounds inflicted by priest or nun. King’s poems have appeared out of nowhere, some of them published in Prime Number, Cactus Heart, Portland Review, and Straylight. His first poetry book, Doggerland: Ancestral Poems, was a finalist for the Louise Bogan Award and won the Off the Grid Poetry Prize. His second book is Bird Years (Mayapple Press, 2017) and his novel, The Book of Saves, was longlisted for the YesYes Books 2023 Fiction Open.
