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Black Mesa Poems
by Jimmy Santiago BacaBlack Mesa Poems is rooted in the American Southwest, the setting of Jimmy Santiago Baca's highly acclaimed long narrative poem, Martin & Meditations on the South Valley (New Directions, 1987). Black Mesa Poems is rooted in the American Southwest, the setting of Jimmy Santiago Baca's highly acclaimed long narrative poem, Martin & Meditations on the South Valley (New Directions, 1987). "Baca's evocation of this landscape," as City Paper noted, "its aridity and fertility, is nothing short of brilliant." The individual poems of Black Mesa are embedded both in the family and in the community life of the barrio, detailing births and deaths, neighbors and seasons, injustices and victories. Loosely interconnected, the poems trace a visionary biography of place.
Black Moods: Collected Poems (American Poetry Recovery Series)
by Frank Marshall DavisBlack Moods collects for the first time all of Frank Marshall Davis’s extant published poems as well as his previously unpublished work. From sharp-edged sketches of Southside Chicago’s urban landscape to the prismatic world that lay beneath Hawaii’s placid surface, Davis’s muscular poems blend social, cultural, and political concerns--always shaped by his promise to “try to be as direct as good blues.” John Edgar Tidwell’s introduction examines both Davis’s poetry and his politics, presenting a subtle portrait of a complex writer devoted to exposing discriminatory practices and reaffirming the humanity of the common people.
Black Moon
by Matthew SweeneyNegotiating the borders and hinterlands of Central and Eastern Europe - with occasional coracle trips or forays to Antarctica for a round of golf - the homesick flaneur surveys the surrounding devastation with the same mixture of fascination and alarm he feels when he discovers the sweat-mark on his T-shirt makes a perfect map of Ireland. All around, he sees natural and man-made catastrophe: the ruins and remnants of war peopled by kidnappers and assassins, feral dogs, death squads, the dispossessed and deracinated. These poems are parables of threat, parties for the end of the world; they speak eloquently of damage, displacement and the resulting swell of terror: 'I looked back at the door heard the lock click, then beyondanother lock, then another.'
Black Mountain Poems: Poems And Essays (American Literature Ser.)
by Jonathan C. CreasyAn essential selection of one of the most important twentieth-century creative movements Black Mountain College had an explosive influence on American poetry, music, art, craft, dance, and thought; it’s hard to imagine any other institution that was so utopian, rebellious, and experimental. Founded with the mission of creating rounded, complete people by balancing the arts and manual labor within a democratic, nonhierarchical structure, Black Mountain was a crucible of revolutionary literature. Although this artistic haven only existed from 1933 to 1956, Black Mountain helped inspire some of the most radical and significant midcentury American poets. This anthology begins with the well-known Black Mountain Poets—Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, and Denise Levertov—but also includes the artist Josef Albers and the musician John Cage, as well as the often overlooked women associated with the college, M. C. Richards and Hilda Morley.
Black Music, Black Poetry: Blues and Jazz's Impact on African American Versification
by Gordon E. ThompsonBlack Music, Black Poetry offers readers a fuller appreciation of the diversity of approaches to reading black American poetry. It does so by linking a diverse body of poetry to musical genres that range from the spirituals to contemporary jazz. The poetry of familiar figures such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes and less well-known poets like Harryette Mullen or the lyricist to Pharaoh Sanders, Amos Leon Thomas, is scrutinized in relation to a musical tradition contemporaneous with the lifetime of each poet. Black music is considered the strongest representation of black American communal consciousness; and black poetry, by drawing upon such a musical legacy, lays claim to a powerful and enduring black aesthetic. The contributors to this volume take on issues of black cultural authenticity, of musical imitation, and of poetic performance as displayed in the work of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, Amiri Baraka, Michael Harper, Nathaniel Mackey, Jayne Cortez, Harryette Mullen, and Amos Leon Thomas. Taken together, these essays offer a rich examination of the breath of black poetry and the ties it has to the rhythms and forms of black music and the influence of black music on black poetic practice.
Black Oak: Odes Celebrating Powerful Black Men
by Harold GreenAs he did for Black women in Black Roses, Harold Green III, poet and founder of the music collective Flowers for the Living, now honors the Black men he most admires—groundbreakers including Tyler Perry, Barry Jenkins, Billy Porter, Chance the Rapper, LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick, and John Legend—and celebrates their achievements which are transforming lives and making history.Black men are changing society and the world through mastery, innovation, and inspiration at a pace never seen before. In awe of the myriad ways in which Black men are using their vision and power to remake culture and society, spoken word artist Harold Green began writing odes recognizing the extraordinary accomplishments of a series of Black men, which heshared on his Instagram account—tributes that went viral and became a social media sensation. Black Oak brings together many of these popular odes with original works written for this collection.Divided into five sections—bravehearts, champions, dreamers, guardians, and humanitarians—Black Oak features iconic men who are spearheading movements, fighting for equality, challenging the status quo, embracing fatherhood, providing a transformative model of masculinity for our children, inspiring a new generation of creators, and more. Through these beautifully written verses, Harold does not simply place the Black men in this book on a pedestal, he transcends even the most positive stereotypes to view these men and their accomplishments in a new light, and creates meaningful connections between these beloved figures and the lives and experiences of readers of all backgrounds. Featuring full-color illustrations by Melissa Koby, Black Oak includes odes to Barry Jenkins, Big K.R.I.T, Billy Porter, Black Thought, Chance the Rapper, Charles Booker, Colin Kaepernick, Dwyane Wade, Edmund Graham III, Eric Hale, Excell Hardy Jr., Harold Green III, Harold Green Jr., Harold Green Sr., Hebru Brantley, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Jamaal Bowman, Jason Reynolds, Jericho Brown, John Legend, Kehinde Wiley, Kerry James Marshall, Kevin Fredricks, Killer Mike, Kyler Broadus, LeBron James, Mahershala Ali, Marc Lamont Hill, Matthew Cherry, Orlando Cooper, Pharrell, Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III, Rev. Dr. William Barber II, Ryan Coogler, Swizz Beatz, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Theaster Gates, Tobe Nwigwe, Tristan Walker, and Tyler Perry.
Black Prayers
by Elijah Karriem‘My original thought when writing this book was as a paean to the church – the Black Church – that had sustained me throughout my childhood and boyhood. I wanted to say thank you for all the joy, strength, hope and faith it had given me. ‘I also wanted to celebrate the wider voices of the black diaspora that have added an essence of wisdom to my youth and adulthood: I would not be the person I am today without these voices and influences. ‘I have learned that silence is blessing if you seek the truth, but there comes a time to sing of the truths – so I have now chosen to sing. ‘God works and is manifest through the flesh of people. If we listen to the God Voice within, we can hear the genetically coded source of holy science throughout our brief sojourn on this planet. Read, enjoy, and if it is your wont – get annoyed! ‘All I desire is that these poems move you.’ Elijah Karriem
Black Rainbow: How Words Healed Me, My Journey Through Depression
by Rachel KellyIn 1997, Oxford graduate, working mother and Times journalist Rachel Kelly went from feeling mildly anxious to being completely unable to function within the space of just three days. Prescribed antidepressants by her doctor, and supported by her husband and her family, Rachel slowly began to get better, but her anxiety levels remained high, and six years later, as a stay-at-home mother, she suffered a second collapse even worse than the first. Throughout both of Rachel's periods of severe depression, the healing power of poetry became an integral part of her recovery. As someone who had always loved poetry, it became something for Rachel to cling on to in times of need - from repeating short mantras to learning and reciting entire poems - these words and verses became a powerful force for change in her life. In Black Rainbow Rachel analyses why poetry can be one answer to depression, and the book contains a selected 40 of the poems that provided Rachel with solace and comfort during her breakdown and recovery. At a time when mental health problems and depression are becoming more common, and the stigma around such issues is finally being lifted, this book offers a lifeline for anyone seeking to understand depression and seek new ways to treat it. Poetry is free, has no side-effects and, as Rachel can attest, 'prescribing words instead of pills' can be an incredibly powerful remedy.
Black Rainbow: How words healed me: my journey through depression
by Rachel KellyBlack Rainbow is the powerful first-person story of one woman's struggle with depression and how she managed to recover from it through the power of poetry.In 1997, Oxford graduate, working mother and Times journalist Rachel Kelly went from feeling mildly anxious to being completely unable to function within the space of just three days. Prescribed antidepressants by her doctor, and supported by her husband and her family, Rachel slowly began to get better, but her anxiety levels remained high, and six years later, as a stay-at-home mother, she suffered a second collapse even worse than the first.Throughout both of Rachel's periods of severe depression, the healing power of poetry became an integral part of her recovery. As someone who had always loved poetry, it became something for Rachel to cling on to in times of need - from repeating short mantras to learning and reciting entire poems - these words and verses became a powerful force for change in her life. In Black Rainbow Rachel analyses why poetry can be one answer to depression, and the book contains a selected 40 of the poems that provided Rachel with solace and comfort during her breakdown and recovery. At a time when mental health problems and depression are becoming more common, and the stigma around such issues is finally being lifted, this book offers a lifeline for anyone seeking to understand depression and seek new ways to treat it. Poetry is free, has no side-effects and, as Rachel can attest, 'prescribing words instead of pills' can be an incredibly powerful remedy.
Black Rainbow: How words healed me: my journey through depression
by Rachel KellyBlack Rainbow is the powerful first-person story of one woman's struggle with depression and how she managed to recover from it through the power of poetry.In 1997, Oxford graduate, working mother and Times journalist Rachel Kelly went from feeling mildly anxious to being completely unable to function within the space of just three days. Prescribed antidepressants by her doctor, and supported by her husband and her family, Rachel slowly began to get better, but her anxiety levels remained high, and six years later, as a stay-at-home mother, she suffered a second collapse even worse than the first.Throughout both of Rachel's periods of severe depression, the healing power of poetry became an integral part of her recovery. As someone who had always loved poetry, it became something for Rachel to cling on to in times of need - from repeating short mantras to learning and reciting entire poems - these words and verses became a powerful force for change in her life. In Black Rainbow Rachel analyses why poetry can be one answer to depression, and the book contains a selected 40 of the poems that provided Rachel with solace and comfort during her breakdown and recovery. At a time when mental health problems and depression are becoming more common, and the stigma around such issues is finally being lifted, this book offers a lifeline for anyone seeking to understand depression and seek new ways to treat it. Poetry is free, has no side-effects and, as Rachel can attest, 'prescribing words instead of pills' can be an incredibly powerful remedy.
Black Rainbow: How words healed me: my journey through depression
by Rachel KellyBlack Rainbow is the powerful first-person story of one woman's struggle with depression and how she managed to recover from it through the power of poetry.In 1997, Oxford graduate, working mother and Times journalist Rachel Kelly went from feeling mildly anxious to being completely unable to function within the space of just three days. Prescribed antidepressants by her doctor, and supported by her husband and her family, Rachel slowly began to get better, but her anxiety levels remained high, and six years later, as a stay-at-home mother, she suffered a second collapse even worse than the first.Throughout both of Rachel's periods of severe depression, the healing power of poetry became an integral part of her recovery. As someone who had always loved poetry, it became something for Rachel to cling on to in times of need - from repeating short mantras to learning and reciting entire poems - these words and verses became a powerful force for change in her life. In Black Rainbow Rachel analyses why poetry can be one answer to depression, and the book contains a selected 40 of the poems that provided Rachel with solace and comfort during her breakdown and recovery. At a time when mental health problems and depression are becoming more common, and the stigma around such issues is finally being lifted, this book offers a lifeline for anyone seeking to understand depression and seek new ways to treat it. Poetry is free, has no side-effects and, as Rachel can attest, 'prescribing words instead of pills' can be an incredibly powerful remedy.(P)2014 Hodder & Stoughton
The Black Riviera (Wesleyan Poetry Series)
by Mark JarmanYet, these are ultimately poems of survival. Jarman explores the redemptive power of the imagination and the ways in which we transform experience into stories we tell about our lives. His characters vividly express the will to cling to existence and understand it as they pursue the meaning of family, home, identity, and love. Invented memories resurrect a forgotten past, opening doors of possibility and adding a strange richness to everyday life. "Flowers of the flesh,/ Hung on the cliffs to watch and be watched./ Don't let me see reproach, don't let me see it,/ In your eyes. Let me be the only one/ Who knows and tells you."
The Black Romantic Revolution: Abolitionist Poets at the End of Slavery
by Matt SandlerThe prophetic poetry of slavery and its abolitionDuring the pitched battle over slavery in the United States, Black writers—enslaved and free—allied themselves with the cause of abolition and used their art to advocate for emancipation and to envision the end of slavery as a world-historical moment of possibility. These Black writers borrowed from the European tradition of Romanticism—lyric poetry, prophetic visions--to write, speak, and sing their hopes for what freedom might mean. At the same time, they voiced anxieties about the expansion of global capital and US imperial power in the aftermath of slavery. They also focused on the ramifications of slavery's sexual violence. Authors like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, George Moses Horton, Albery Allson Whitman, and Joshua McCarter Simpson conceived the Civil War as a revolutionary upheaval on par with Europe's stormy Age of Revolutions. The Black Romantic Revolution proposes that the Black Romantics' cultural innovations have shaped Black radical culture to this day, from the blues and hip hop to Black nationalism and Black feminism. Their expressions of love and rage, grief and determination, dreams and nightmares, still echo into our present.
Black Roses: Odes Celebrating Powerful Black Women
by Harold GreenThe poet and founder of the music collective Flowers for the Living pays tribute to all Black women by focusing on visionaries and leaders who are making history right now, including Ava DuVernay, Janelle Monae, Kamala Harris, Misty Copeland, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Robin Roberts, Roxane Gay, and Simone Biles—with this compilation of celebratory odes featuring full-color illustrations by Melissa Koby.Black women are exceptional. To honor how Black women use their minds, talent, passion, and power to transform society, Harold Green began writing love letters in verse which he shared on his Instagram account. Balm for our troubled times, his tributes to visionaries and leaders quickly went viral and became a social media sensation. Now, in this remarkable collection, Green brings together many of these popular odes with never-before-seen works. A timely celebration of contemporary Black figures who are making history and shaping our culture today, Black Roses is divided into five sections—advocates, curators, innovators, luminaries, trailblazers—reflecting the diversity of Black women’s achievements and the depth of their reach. These inspiring changemakers are leaving their mark on the world by creating new beauty in their respective art forms, heading movements, fighting for equality and to change the status quo, and championing new definitions of what’s possible in every meaningful way. Green lifts them up to create meaningful connections between these figures and our own lives and experiences.Black Roses spotlights and urges readers to learn more about Allyson Felix, Angelica Ross, Ava DuVernay, Bisa Butler, Bozoma Saint John, Charisma Sweat-Green, Dr. Eve Ewing, Dr. Janice Jackson, Dr. Johnnetta Cole, Eunique Jones-Gibson, Issa Rae, Janelle Monae, Jennifer Hudson, Jessica Matthews, Kamala Harris, Keisha Bottoms, Kimberly Bryant, Kimberly Drew, Lisa Green, Lizzo, Mandilyn Graham, Mellody Hobson, Michelle Alexander, Misty Copeland, Naomi Beckwith, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Rapsody, Raquel Willis, Robin Roberts, Roxane Gay, Shellye Archambeau, Simone Biles, Stacey Abrams, Tabitha Brown, Tamika Mallory, Tarana Burke, Tasha Bell, Tomi Adeyemi, and Tracee Ellis Ross.
Black Series: Poems
by Laurie SheckIn her remarkable Black Series, Laurie Sheck turns the ordinary world inside out and shows us its glittering seams. Her long, elegantly quizzical lines convey a haunted vision of human striving which is in part an elaboration on our daily reality, and in part a fantastic departure from it. "I can almost taste the glassy air," she writes. "Where are the birds in it, / wings lifting as currents buffet them like echoes, bright / chaos of atomized instances . . . ?" Roaming freely in the shifting landscape of the imagination, Sheck delivers an inner life that is just as vivid as what we see around us; at the same time, she shows us what we see in a new light, bringing illumination even to darkness:It's the black night that wakes in me, so dominant, so focused.And then a car goes by and I think, "I'm in the world,"tires kicking up gravel from the dust.What does the orange hawkweed do inside this dark-its radiancesecretive but not extinguished?To read this collection is to discover at every turn that secretive but undeniable radiance, and a language that is both riveting and distinctive.From the Hardcover edition.
Black Star (The Door of No Return series #2)
by Kwame AlexanderThe riveting second book in the #1 New York Times bestselling Door of No Return trilogy stars Kofi&’s granddaughter, Charley, who&’s set on becoming the first female pitcher to play professional ball but who soon has to contend with the tensions about to boil over in her segregated town.You can&’t protect her from knowing. The truth is all we have. 12-year old Charley Cuffey is many things: a granddaughter, a best friend, and probably the best pitcher in all of Lee&’s Mill. Set on becoming the first female pitcher to play professional ball, Charley doesn't need reminders from her best friend Cool Willie Green to know that she has lofty dreams for a Black girl in the American South. Even so, Nana Kofi's thrilling stories about courageous ancestors and epic journeys make it impossible not to dream big. She knows he has so many more to tell, but according to her parents, she isn't old enough to know about certain things like what happened to Booker Preston that one night in Great Bridge and why she can never play on the brand-new real deal baseball field on the other side of town. When Charley challenges a neighborhood bully to a game at the church picnic, she knows she can win, even with her ragtag team. But when the picnic spills over onto their ball field, she makes a fateful decision. A child cannot protect herself if she does not know her history, and Charley's choice brings consequences she never could have imagined. In this thrilling second book of the Door of No Return trilogy, set during the turbulent segregation era, and the beginning of The Great Migration, Kwame Alexander weaves a spellbinding story of struggle, determination, and the unflappable faith of an American family.
Black Steel Magnolias In The Hour Of Chaos Theory
by James CagneyPoetry. African & African American Studies. California Interest. <P><P>The poems in BLACK STEEL MAGNOLIAS IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS THEORY interrogate identity, family, loneliness, and the expectations of masculinity. Using dreams, blues, and a chorus of voices, this collection of poems examines the complexities of intimacy for an adopted person trying to find balance between two families--one rattled by age and illness; the other, holding space for a son that doesn't exist.
Black Troubadour Langston Hughes
by Charlemae H. RollinsLangston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.<P><P>Winner of the Coretta Scott King Medal
The Black Unicorn: Poems
by Audre LordeThe Black Unicorn is a collection of poems by a woman who, Adrienne Rich writes, "for the complexity of her vision, for her moral courage and the catalytic passion of her language, has already become, for many, an indispensable poet." Rich continues: "Refusing to be circumscribed by any simple identity, Audre Lorde writes as a Black woman, a mother, a daughter, a Lesbian, a feminist, a visionary; poems of elemental wildness and healing, nightmare and lucidity. Her rhythms and accents have the timelessness of a poetry which extends beyond white Western politics, beyond the anger and wisdom of Black America, beyond the North American earth, to Abomey and the Dahomeyan Amazons. These are poems nourished in an oral tradition, which also blaze and pulse on the page, beneath the reader's eye."
The Black Unicorn: Poems
by Audre Lorde"Refusing to be circumscribed by any simple identity, Audre Lorde writes as a Black woman, a mother, a daughter, a Lesbian, a feminist, a visionary; poems of elemental wildness and healing, nightmare and lucidity. Her rhythms and accents have the timelessness of a poetry which extends beyond white Western politics, beyond the anger and wisdom of Black America, beyond the North American earth, to Abomey and the Dahomeyan Amazons. These are poems nourished in an oral tradition, which also blaze and pulse on the page, beneath the reader's eye." -Adrienne Rich
Black Zodiac
by Charles WrightThese are poems suffused with spiritual longing, lyrical meditations on faith, religion, heritage, and morality that also explore aging and mortality with restless grace. Entering by way of small moments, Wright magnifies details to reveal a truth much larger than the quotidian happening that engendered it. <P><P> Pulitzer Prize Winner
Blackacre: Poems
by Monica Youn*Winner of the William Carlos Williams Award**National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist**Included in The New York Times Best Poetry of 2016**Named one of The Washington Post's Best Poetry Collections of 2016** Longlisted for the National Book Award*“Blackacre” is a centuries-old legal fiction—a placeholder name for a hypothetical estate. Treacherously lush or alluringly bleak, these poems reframe their subjects as landscape, as legacy—a bereavement, an intimacy, a racial identity, a pubescence, a culpability, a diagnosis. With a surveyor’s keenest tools, Youn marks the boundaries of the given, what we have been allotted: acreage that has been ruthlessly fenced, previously tenanted, ploughed and harvested, enriched and depleted. In the title sequence, the poet gleans a second crop from the field of Milton’s great sonnet on his blindness: a lyric meditation on her barrenness, on her own desire—her own struggle—to conceive a child. What happens when the transformative imagination comes up against the limits of unalterable fact?
Blackout Starlight: New and Selected Poems, 1997-2015
by Bruce BondBlackout Starlight brings together a selection of poems from nine previously published books, along with a generous assortment of new work. At the heart of this collection are investigations of the role of eros, language, and creative life, and of the wonder and anxiety of their absence. In Bond’s telling, the lines between real and unreal, living and dead, blur together in the poet’s imagination, casting an equally compassionate eye upon “the man we see writhing in the marble” of an uncarved statue and the son at a funeral trying to face “the other half of life, the part / without my father in it.”Taken together, the selections in this book represent the highlights of a dazzling career in poetry and leave the reader eager for many more years of Bond’s verses to come.
Blacks
by Gwendolyn BrooksHere is a necessary collection of poetry for admirers of words and treasurers of literary beauty. Spanning over 30 years, this collection of literary masterpieces by the venerable Ms. Gwendolyn Brooks, arguably Illinois' most beloved Poet Laureate and Chicago's elder Black literary stateswoman, Blacks includes all of Ms. Brooks' critically acclaimed writings. Within its covers is the groundbreaking "Annie Allen," which earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1950, making her the first Black to achieve that honor. There is also the sweepingly beautiful and finely crafted "A Street in Bronzeville," a highly anticipated and lauded poetic treasure that spoke volumes for this great poet's love of Black people, Chicago's Black community, and even the community of the world. Blacks includes a special treat, Maud Martha, Brooks' only novel.
Blacksnake at the Family Reunion: Poems (Southern Messenger Poets)
by David HuddleDavid Huddle's latest collection, Blacksnake at the Family Reunion, shares intimate and amusing stories as if told by a quirky, usually reticent, great uncle. In "Boy Story," a teenage romantic meeting ends abruptly when the boy's sweetheart realizes they have parked near her grandmother's grave. The poem "Aloft" recalls a widowed mother's indignation after she receives a marriage proposal in a hot air balloon. Haunted by the words on his older sister's tombstone -- "born & died... then / a single date / in November" -- the speaker in one poem struggles to understand a tragic loss: "The ampersand / tells the whole truth / and nothing but, / so help me God, / whose divine shrug / is expressed so / eloquently / by that grave mark."Blacksnake at the Family Reunion continues Huddle's poetic inquiry into the power of early childhood and family to infuse adulthood with sadness and despair -- an inquiry conducted with profound empathy for the fragility of humankind.